Verify ownership & link your site

Overview

Before Allspice can sync or promote recipes from your site, you verify that you own the domain by adding a DNS TXT record. If you connect several domains, each one is verified separately.

Once a domain is verified, Allspice starts syncing its recipes, the recipes become eligible for promotion across Allspice, and analytics tracking starts.

Prerequisites

1. Your organization has signed the Allspice Publisher Agreement, and your publisher account is active.
2. You can add DNS records at your DNS provider or registrar (for example GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace, or Cloudflare).
3. Your site uses HTTPS.

Adding your domain

Adding a domain tells Allspice where your recipes live. Nothing is crawled or synced until the domain is verified.

1. Sign in to the Publisher Portal and open Integrate.
2. In the Link a new domain field, type your domain (for example www.yoursite.com) and press Enter or click the arrow.
3. Fill in Site Name (how the site appears in your dashboard), check the Domain, and choose your Platform / CMS and Est. Monthly Page Views.
4. Click Submit Details.

Verifying your domain

The Allspice widget only runs on verified domains, so other sites can't use your integration and reader activity is attributed to the right site. Each domain gets its own record, similar to:

1. Add the TXT record to your DNS
   In the domain list on Integrate, click View records in your domain’s Activation key column, then Copy TXT Record. Sign in to your DNS provider and create a TXT record with that value.
   
   
   TIP:

   If your DNS provider requires a hostname, use @ or leave the field blank to apply to the root domain.

   Instructions for common providers:
   
   
   • My domain registrar is Squarespace
   • My domain registrar is GoDaddy
   • My domain registrar is Cloudflare
   • My domain registrar is Namecheap
   • My domain registrar is Domain.com
   • My domain registrar is Wix
2. Wait for DNS propagation
   Most records are visible within 1-15 minutes; some take up to 24 hours. You don't need to stay on the page while you wait.
3. Verify the domain
   Back on Integrate, click Verify next to the domain. When verification succeeds, the status changes to Syncing and recipe syncing starts automatically. If it doesn't verify yet, wait a few minutes and try again.

Managing multiple domains

One Allspice account can hold several domains. Each has its own TXT record, is verified on its own, and syncs on its own, so a problem with one domain doesn't affect the others.

The domain list on Integrate shows each domain's status:

• Not verified - added, but the TXT record hasn't been verified yet
• Syncing - verified; Allspice is syncing the domain's recipes
• Ready - recipes have synced, and you can connect the WordPress plugin (see WordPress plugin).

The list also shows how many recipes are Indexed for each domain and its Last crawl date. Click a domain to open its settings, with General, Connections, and WordPress tabs.