Configure Cloudflare for your site

While many Cloudflare features are already built into your WordPress.com hosting, you may want to use Cloudflare’s DNS management for a domain registered through WordPress.com. In this guide, you will learn how to configure Cloudflare’s DNS for your WordPress.com site.

Cloudflare provides optimization services for WordPress websites. However, your WordPress.com hosting already includes many similar features:

• Built in Content Delivery Network (CDN)
• Server caching
• Protected server IPs (Anycast)
• Defensive and Auto-Defensive mode
• Brute Force Protection
• Web application firewalls (WAF)
• Web analytics
• Speed optimization
• SSL Certificates

Cloudflare requires that your website’s domain uses their nameservers. Follow these steps to configure your nameservers:

1. Visit your WordPress.com site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Upgrades → Domains (or Hosting → Domains in WP Admin) and select your domain.
3. Click “Name Servers“.
4. Disable the “Use WordPress.com name servers” option.
5. Enter the name servers provided by Cloudflare in the boxes provided.
6. Click the “Save custom name servers” button.

Note: Cloudflare should maintain the A Records and CNAME necessary for WordPress.com to continue hosting your website.

Refer to Cloudflare’s documentation for additional access and configuration.

If your domain is registered through another provider, update your name servers using that provider’s instructions.

To prevent redirects loops and conflicts, configure SSL in your Cloudflare dashboard to Full or Full (Strict).

Visit Cloudflare’s documentation to learn how to change your SSL settings to Full or Full (Strict).

You may need to re-provision your site’s SSL certificate on WordPress.com after configuring it to work with Cloudflare. You can check the status of your SSL through your WordPress.com dashboard, and re-provision it if there is an error.

Learn how to re-provision your site’s SSL certificate.

To take full advantage of WordPress.com’s built-in security settings, Web application firewalls (WAF), and site optimization features, we strongly recommend that you disable proxying on Cloudflare.

Learn how to disable the proxy for specific DNS records on Cloudflare.

Note: While Jetpack cannot be disabled on WordPress.com-hosted sites, Cloudflare offers instructions for ensuring that Jetpack continues to work with your Cloudflare setup.

If you encounter an SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP error with a Cloudflare-managed domain:

1. Disable the Cloudflare SSL setting temporarily.
2. Re-provision the WordPress.com LetsEncrypt SSL.

If you get a 301 Redirect Error when sharing to Facebook:

1. Check your Cloudflare settings under SSL/TLS → Edge Certificates.
2. Ensure Always Use HTTPS and Automatic HTTPS rewrite are turned off.

If you need help connecting Cloudflare to your site, contact WordPress.com support.

For questions about Cloudflare’s services, visit the Cloudflare support site.