What happens when a whitelabel (suffix) domain is removed?
The whitelabel / suffix domain feature lets you create sites on your own domain (for example client.youragency.com) instead of the default *.instawp.site / *.instawp.dev suffix. This article explains what happens to those sites if the whitelabel domain is later removed from your team, and how to get them back online.
This behaviour applies to any site whose URL uses a whitelabel suffix domain. It does not affect sites created on the default InstaWP suffix domains.
When is a whitelabel domain removed?
A whitelabel suffix domain leaves your team in one of two ways:
- You remove it manually from Team Profile → White Label.
- It is auto-removed because it was never verified. If a suffix domain stays unverified (its NS records were never added / verified), InstaWP emails a warning to finish verification within the stated window. If it is still unverified after that, the domain is removed automatically and has to be added again.
What happens to sites on that domain
When the whitelabel domain is removed:
- The site's suffix domain does not fall back to InstaWP's default domain. The site keeps pointing at the removed domain rather than reverting to
*.instawp.site. - The site becomes inaccessible. Because DNS for the removed domain no longer resolves, the site loads with a browser error such as
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN. - The domain is delisted from the suffix-domain options, so it can no longer be selected when creating new sites.
The site's data is not deleted — only its domain stops resolving. The recovery below brings the content back online under a working domain.
How to recover a site
To bring an affected site back online, clone it onto a new or default suffix domain:
- Open the affected site in your InstaWP dashboard.
- Use Site Tools → Clone (or Add Site → Clone) to create a copy of the site.
- During cloning, choose the default InstaWP suffix (
*.instawp.site/*.instawp.dev) or a different, verified whitelabel suffix domain. - The clone comes up on the working domain with all of your content intact. Use it in place of the original site.
If you intend to keep using your own domain, re-add and verify the whitelabel suffix domain first (see Add Whitelabel / Suffix Domain), then clone the site onto it.
How to avoid this
- Finish NS verification for any whitelabel suffix domain you add, and keep those NS records in place at your DNS provider — an unverified domain is auto-removed after the warning window.
- Don't remove a whitelabel domain that still has live sites on it unless you have already cloned those sites onto another domain.
If you have live sites on a whitelabel domain and are unsure how to migrate them safely, reach out to InstaWP support before removing the domain.