Cloudflare Help Please

Carlin,

The video is HD so just click on an HD setting and it's perfectly HD clear even on a full screen. The video is only two minutes. You can also slow the video down with YT settings. You can select .25, .5, or, .75 speed and you can click on HD 720P or 1080P... Those settings are found on the gear icon you see on the video.

The big long help thread is here.

https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=4516732

You can set the nameservers to Cloudflare now and then proceed with the rest.

Can you send me or post a screenshot so we know what you are seeing?

I added the screen shot to my op since I don't know how to add photos here

I can't really read those very well but you want your entire site to be routed through Cloudflare, correct?

If that's the case then you can delete 2 of those records and change the IP on the remaining one. Or delete them all and add a new one.

Yes, you select the CNAME record for the www info.

In your video, I selected HD and that works thank you.

My end goal is to change my pixels https://carlin-blahnik.pixels.com/ to CarlinArtWatercolor.com and be SECURE

In your video right off the start you use the @ sign and past some numbers in the value. Where do you get those numbers? I got lost 10 seconds in!

This really needs to be laid out in kindergarten language for folks that don't have much or any experience with domains and such.
It is all so frustrating and time consuming for beginners :(

So I can delete them all and then for A name I add CarlinArtWatercolor.com ? And for values??

The A Record IP address and CNAME domain name info is provided by FAA/Pixels. Yes, you can delete them all, or delete 2 of them and edit the remaining A Record.

If anyone needs any CF help

You can set up a helpers account for me on Cloudflare email abbieshores- at - fineartamerica.com and I can make the changes for you

Log into Cloudflare
ACCOUNT
See Members across the top of the page and add me
Please do not add 2FA enforcement as I will not need the account that long

Carlin, you go behind the scenes on Pixels and select Custom Domain Name to find the IP and CNAME information I just posted about (it's also the same as what is shown in the video). It's the same place you enter your domain name on Pixels. Just don't follow the steps there because the instructions do not describe a secure setup, but the A Record and CNAME info provided is what all of use on Cloudflare.

Abbie is officially in the CF business. ;-) NIce of you to do.

If I add my A name, it then needs a IPv4 address, where do I find that?

If I edit any of the auto filled A names, what am I editing them too?

Where do I locate the "IP address and CNAME domain name info is provided by FAA/Pixels" ?

If I can just pass go, I might be able to collect $200


Edited to say that I will have Abbie help me, thank you!

It's the number you see in the video, which is the same as what is shown in our Pixels accounts, as I just mentioned above.

Abbie, you really should add the..

Always use HTTPS - ON

and

Automatic HTTPS Rewrites - ON

...to your tutorial. It will save you time & trouble later on especially now that you are assisting others as they can be needed depending on the site.

Cheers

Like Carlin, I'm very interested in using Cloudflare to make my private domain secure.

However, one problem I've noticed with the Cloudflare/Pixels domains is that they don't really work with Pinterest. Normally when you pin a product from a Pixels domain (i.e. myname.Pixels.com), the pin appears on Pinterest as a "Rich" product pin & links directly back to the product on the Pixels domain. Rich product pins rank higher on Pinterest and display real time pricing, title & description metadata. On Pinterest you'll notice Rich product pins because they have a little price tag icon underneath them.

To test Cloudfare with Pinterest, I tried pinning a canvas print from Don's site, digitalartpros.com, in several ways. Here are the results:

1. Pinned using the Pinterest browser bookmarklet. This created a Rich product pin, but the pin linked back to FAA, not Don's private domain. There was no way to edit the link.
2. Pinned using the Pinterest icon underneath the image on Don's website. The pin linked back to Don's website, But it did not create a Rich product pin, nor did it copy the product title or description.
3. Pinned from Pinterest.com from the product URL on Don's website. Same as above. Link worked, but no Rich product pin, no title or description.

I also tried pinning a canvas print from CondeNastStore.com using the same 3 pinning methods. All of the pins worked perfectly - links, Rich pins, product metadata all correct.

Maybe someone more technical than me can explain this.

Beverly,

It looks to me like Conde Nast is partnered with FAA/PIxels because the security certificate they use is actually issued to artistwebsites.com. As far as I know, we can't get a security certificate installed (or allowed to work) that way. It's the same certificate that Pixels uses.

The company used is this one.

https://letsencrypt.org/getting-started/

The old article you have probably seen already.

https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2017/08/09/this-coder-built-an-online-marketplace-that-now.html

Thanks for the Rich Pin and other info, I've been on Pinterest from the basically the beginning, but to be honest, I have not really used it in years so I didn't notice the Pins are supposed to be Rich but they are not. It would be nice if we could all use the Conde Nast solution.

I have not tried Let's Encrypt but I might check into it to see what happens when I get some extra time.

Cheers

Will making this change to the URL have any effect in Google search?

Changing your custom domain from unsecured to secured should actually help you a tiny bit with google ranks. All the old http links will still work fine. Google has considered HTTPS a ranking factor since 2014.

Cheers

Mine was forwarded so it IS secure. But I would like to have https there.

http://jessicajenney.com/

The Pixels pages already indexed should remain that way. With a custom domain, some of the links should slowly get indexed with your domain name as well.

Cheers

Beverly, Thank you for all that info about Pinterest and Rich Pins. ALL of my PINS are RICH and this is SO important!!!

If using a custom domain name changes this, then I am not interested in having a custom name.

Pinterest is my main social marketing site and provides the vast majority of click backs. I don't want to change that in the least!

Carlin and Beverly,

Having a custom domain does not prevent you from creating Rich Pins from Pixels.

Rich Pins can still be done from here:

https://digitalartpros.pixels.com/featured/big-whiskers-cat-don-northup.html

Just not from here:

https://digitalartpros.com/featured/big-whiskers-cat-don-northup.html

Cheers

Don, thank you very much for sharing your technical expertise!

As I'm sure Carlin agrees, the issue with Rich Pins & custom domains, isn't just about us being able to pin our own products. A lot of pinning is done by site visitors who save our products to their public Pinterest boards. Those pins then show up in Pinterest search and get repinned by other Pinterest users - hence the viral power of Pinterest. Since we have no control over other people's pins, it's important that pins work automatically no matter who does the pinning - with Rich Pins, correct links, titles and descriptions. The yourname.Pixels subdomains work perfectly, but for now the custom domains with Cloudflare ecryption are not compatible with Pinterest.

I hear what you are saying, Beverly. 100%

To be honest, I was one of the people from the beginning that railed against Pinterest because the site is a haven for piracy. Back in the day, I would add code to my site so the Pinterest browser pinning tools would not work.

I realize the photographers fighting against Pinterest have lost the battle and here we are now where sharing (and pirating) is the norm. I fully understand the value of social media and sharing in today's world so if it's not something you can live without I fully understand.

Until FAA/Pixels allows us to do SSL like Conde Nast does with the artsiwebsites certificate and setup, I think we might be stuck with the Pins as they are. I am pretty busy now, but when I get caught up I will investigate Lets Encrypt just to see if it is possible to do without FAA/Pixels having to set us up differently. I don't have high hopes, but it's a worth a little checking out.

Cheers

Edit: Apparently, this has to do with Pinterest site claim/validation and not SSL.

Huh, I never realised that about pinning via the pin it button on the page. For my own pins I've been creating pins on Pinterest using secured address and they seem to come out as Rich Pins ok e.g. https://pin.it/a6hnub5pmrz6ez . So possibly a temporary work around for your pins.

But that doesn't help much if viewers/buyers are using the pin button 🤔

Scott, I just corrected my original post. Your post does look like a rich pin. I just tried pinning the same image from your private domain using the Pinterest icon under the image & the Rich Pin worked. Are you using CloudFlare? I just tried again pinning from Don's website using exactly the same method. It did not produce a Rich Pin. Maybe there's something different in the way your site is encrypted.

Don, thanks again for helping those of us who are technically challenged on the domain issue :-) Like you, I wasn't a fan of PInterest at the beginning. However, I've come to accept the social sharing phenomenon. At least with Pinterest (unlike Instagram or Facebook), our pictures link back to our websites. Also Pinterest has a simple automated DMCA takedown form that makes it easy to remove images that don't link back to my site or FAA. And Pinterest has a visual search that makes finding those images quite easy.

I didn't try this exhaustively - but I clicked the pin button on the page and I got a rich pin and it links back to my site.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/98868154306973156/

I don't have a browser button installed, so my only other option is to go to Pinterest and do it manually.

But that one path did work for me.

It's possible I did the rich pin validation thing in the past. I know I did it for one of my other domains but I don't recall doing it for the one I'm using now. But who knows.

Or maybe it's because the root domain I use is the one associated with my rarely used Pinterest account.

Mark

PS I am using Cloudlfare to secure it - as far as I know there's no other option.

Thank you Mark. This is fascinating. So it's possible the Rich Pin problem isn't related to Cloudflare. It may have to do with whether Rich Pins are validated on your domain or if you claim that domain on Pinterest.

Interesting, Mark. You are using a subdomain so it appears your site was previously validated or claimed from the top level or whatever.

https://developers.pinterest.com/tools/url-debugger/

https://developers.pinterest.com/docs/rich-pins/overview/

https://www.pinterest.com/settings/claim

My full domain won't pass as we have no way to edit the metadata. I knew I should have set up a subdomain instead of a full domain. I certainly don't one to be the one assisting folks on subdomain setup though. I am still considering switching though.

Thanks so much, Abbie!
Now I will drill down to figure out how to make it secure .

Got it ! Thx, again, A :)

I followed your steps and got it to work... Thank you Abbie!

Excellent :-)

Abbie, I bought Christmas cards and on the back was the web address ArtDeco-ModernDesigns, which I used for a while, but after making it a secure site at CloudFlair, the 3D no longer worked on the decor items et al, so I went back to using ChuckStaley.com and letting it change to chuckstaley.pixels.

My question is: Can I change names on my AWS where it says: Your custom domain name is currently set to:

artdeco-moderndesigns.com

Can I change that to read: chuckstaley.com? Is there anything else that I need to do?

Thanks.

You can do that if that is the one that is pointed. Otherwise a pointed one will not work

I think I found what I needed.

Thanks.

Has anyone received this email from Cloudflare:

Cloudflare has detected that your configuration is using our Authenticated Origin Pulls feature. Recently, we renewed the certificate that our edge network presents to your origin due to the upcoming expiration of the current certificate on January 11, 2020.

To ensure uninterrupted service, you need to update your origin server to authenticate with the new authenticated origin pull certificate anytime before January 11, 2020.

You can find the updated certificate and follow the instructions for updating popular origin servers in this Cloudflare Help Center article:

https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/204899617/

Need help? Please contact us at https://support.cloudflare.com/

Thanks again for choosing Cloudflare!
The Cloudflare Team

Yes... I'll be changing my tutorial shortly, but I'm up to my neck in oil paint right now

Thank you, Abbie! I'm lost when it comes to Cloudflare!

Oh, no! I haven’t received this email yet. I don’t even understand what it’s saying.

It was a miracle that I was able to figure out things the first time with Cloudflare. I’m dreading this. :(

It will be something easy, don't worry

Thank you, Abbie! :). :)

Carol, it came in my junk mail! Luckily I caught it.

I am just waiting to hear back from both parties (domain host and Cloudflare) on a couple of issues

Abbie, have you heard anything? And what will happen to ourt site if we don't do anything before January 11th?

I wrote to my host

Not a clue

I wrote to cloudflare and they said I shouldn't have had it... But they are looking into how anyone who does can have the same thing on the server... So then I can ask Sean to add it for us.

I apologize for interrupting.

Anyway

This is a cut and paste comment I just made on Robert Miller's current thread, when "Cloudflare" came up


"I'm beginning to dislike this internet thing, more and more.

While simply checking out reviews on Cloudflare I was interrupted by an apparent live chat..

Starting off with, "I see you are interested in........"

I replied, "None of your business"

The apparent person continued

I ended the chat with, "Bye"


Not being able to do something/ anything on the internet ,with the security that no ones is looking in is not only annoying.... it's frightening"

Hi Abbie,
I seem to have a similar issue as Lynn had a few months ago, meaning on my home page (lyldil-creations.shop) chrome says the site is not fully secure. As soon as I click on any other page, it seems to be safe again. I reviewed all the settings in your tutorial and they're all set properly. I also purged the Cloudflare cache, but it didn't help. I did send you an invite, should you like to check the settings. Do you have any idea how this could be fixed?
Thank you for your help!
Lyl

I'll take a look soon :-)

Abbie, what did you mean by :"I wrote to cloudflare and they said I shouldn't have had it" What does that mean?

I'm very concerned about any interruption with my premium site.

Cloudflare phone: 1-888-99-FLARE

Cloudflare and I are now waiting for Sean.

He will need to upload a file to the main site. We will all be okay then

At present all sites are running fine

Domain Help With Cloudflare
Forgive me, I am a little lost when setting up my website. I have had a premium account for several years, just using the pixels address that was given with the premium account. I recently purchased a domain. My efforts to get the domain I bought to show up in the web browser has been my challenge.
I do all the instructions in switching to Cloudflare and now the mobile version shows the bought domain in a secure site (it was un-secure previously) but the web version on the computer still says the pixels address.
I am not skilled in this area of expertise but here is where I feel like there is a glitch.
In the DNS settings I had to add record for nameserver (NS) cloudflare tells me what nameserver to use but only tell me the "Value" so when creating the NS record do I put the "Value" in both the "name" and "content" of the record?
But that is the only place I can find a discrepancy in my setup instructions.
Any one with skills in this area, your help will be greatly appreciated
I do apologize but Abbie Shores is forcing me to ask this question in the middle of this thread.

Ok so I did all the above - and it shows the black lock icon in the address bar - but when a friend tried to access it he says it showed as unsecured? I followed the instructions to a tee - did I do something wrong?

here is my site:

https://shawndall.com/

*Edit* hmm I just asked someone else and they said it worked for them, so maybe it's just not properly distributed worldwide yet..

Shawn, it is secure for me.

Thanks to Abbie for the tutorial and others for their input I have finally managed to get my site secure!

Being a technophobe I have been putting this off and only just decoded to give this a go.

I am so happy now!

https://gillbillingtonart.com

@ Carl I can't imagine why your domain works on mobile & not on computer???

But since you asked:
"In the DNS settings I had to add record for nameserver (NS) cloudflare tells me what nameserver to use but only tell me the "Value" so when creating the NS record do I put the "Value" in both the "name" and "content" of the record?"

I'm no pro, All I can suggest is how I did it:

Cloudflare DNS page auto populated 3 different values for my domain name.
I erased those 3.
Then added:
A name: ExampleYourNewName.com
points to: 216.185.148.181 (the FAA number)
C name: WWW

Cloudflare provides 2 unique nameserver names.
Copy them & sign into your Domain host (i.e. namesilo, godaddy, etc)
On your Domain host site, navigate to Nameservers/change

Mine had 3
Remove those nameserver names from you Domain host
Replace them with the 2 names provided by Cloudflare
example1.ns.cloudflare.com
example2.ns.cloudflare.com

and submit