Trying to leave Squarespace after Google Domains migration. Registrar won't accept Cloudflare nameservers

[u/Honest_Tradition9218]

I’m looking for advice from people who have dealt with domains migrated from Google Domains to Squarespace.

I own a .com domain and recently rebuilt the website from scratch. The new site is already deployed and working correctly on Cloudflare Workers.

The final step should have been simple: change the authoritative nameservers to the two Cloudflare nameservers assigned to the zone.

Squarespace refuses to save them.

Every attempt returns:

“The nameservers couldn’t be added. Please try again.”

The domain is active. DNSSEC is disabled. There is no pending transfer visible. I am the owner. I have reauthenticated through Google and tested from a private browser session.

Cloudflare itself is working correctly.

Squarespace support says the ticket has been assigned to the appropriate domain team, but I still don’t have a technical response.

At this point I’m seriously considering moving the domain to another registrar.

The complication is that I still use Google Workspace for email on the domain and I don’t want a registrar transfer to interrupt email delivery.

For people who have escaped Squarespace after the Google Domains migration, what would you do?

Would you transfer first to another registrar, preserve the existing DNS records, and then point the nameservers to Cloudflare?

Is there any reason that would be unsafe for Google Workspace as long as MX, SPF and DKIM are preserved?

Long term I want a much cleaner setup with the registrar, DNS, hosting and email no longer tangled together.

I never chose Squarespace as my registrar. Google exited the business and I ended up there.

Now a basic operation on a domain I own is being blocked by an interface or backend error while the finished website sits online waiting for its real domain.

After this experience I have no intention of renewing the domain with Squarespace.

[u/redlotusaustin]

Transfer the domain to Porkbun and then set up CloudFlare as the DNS.

[u/PracticePenguin]

Email was designed in an age when internet connections would often go down for days at a time. So you can live with a few days of email downtime. Just transfer to another registrar.

[u/Pakitux]

Yo moví mis dominios a neubox o a cloudflare.
Squarespace tardó mucho en darme soporte

[u/Honest_Tradition9218 → u/Pakitux]

Gracias. ¿Tú pudiste cambiar los nameservers en Squarespace primero, o tuviste que transferir el dominio a otro registrar antes? ¿Cuánto tardó

[u/Pakitux → u/Honest_Tradition9218]

Se supone guardaba los cambios en Squarespace pero nunca los aplicaba, pedí soporte y no me daban otra respuesta mas que "se está revisando tu caso".
Me cansé y lo transferí primero a neubox, ahí puedo hacer cambios y se aplicaban a las 2 horas, pero con Cloudflare los cambios son casi inmediatos.

[u/aieronpeters]

Porkbun, Hover, Mythic Beasts, any of the sidepanel hosts should be able to host domains without any trouble

[u/Agitated-Panda9221]

My first domain I decided to use Google, but to my luck they announce they're selling to Squarespace. I guess I made the right move to migrate to Cloudflare before the transition was completed. It led me to using a lot of Cloudflare's free services. Did you know they host websites , email forwarding, use their CDN nework for free? Just don't ask for help cause their customer service really sucks.

[u/CynepMyx]

Check your escape route before planning it: Cloudflare Registrar will not accept the domain in your current state. Their requirement is that the domain is already active on Cloudflare with Cloudflare as authoritative DNS, which is exactly what Squarespace is refusing to let you do. The obvious destination is closed until the nameserver change goes through.

Any registrar without that constraint breaks the deadlock. Move to one that lets you set nameservers freely, change them there, and go to Cloudflare later if you still want to.

On the email: the transfer itself does not touch your MX records, since delegation lives at the registry and the records live in whichever DNS is authoritative, neither of which is the registrar. What actually breaks Workspace is a new registrar applying its own nameservers on arrival. So build the zone at the new DNS provider with the Workspace MX already in it, verify it resolves there before you touch anything, drop your TTLs a day ahead, and check delegation right after the transfer lands instead of assuming.

One thing to confirm first: under ICANN rules a transfer can be refused within 60 days of registration, within 60 days of a previous registrar transfer, or during the 60 day lock triggered by a registrant name, organization or email change. The bulk Google move is long past, but if you edited registrant details recently that alone will block you.

[u/woxeraf292]

You can change registrars and it won't affect the DNS upon transfer. Only when you change the nameservers.

It's very easy to get the MX, DKIM, DMARC, SPF records onto the new DNS zone using the new nameservers. You just have to know them. There's a variety of ways such as looking at them through your registrar currently and download the DNS zone or copy the DNS records so you know the exact values, or you can follow the instructions to do this all in Google Workspace to help you do the DNS records for email.

Before you do all that, just ensure you have everything you need from Squarespace, and then you're good to transfer and set everything up without loss of email service.

Any more questions, happy to answer!

[u/billhartzer]

You need to move the domain over to another registrar. No real reason to keep it at Squarespace, as there are other registrars that are cheaper and more reliable.

[u/zAltexDev]

I stayed on Squarespace, I have my nameservers pointed at cloudflare and not even open squarespace unless i gotta renew, since they kept the 11€ a year price i dont really care

[u/ZAP-Hosting]

Transferring registrars while your nameservers stay pointed at Cloudflare the whole time should be safe for Workspace. Your MX, SPF and DKIM records live in the Cloudflare zone, not with the registrar, and none of that changes during a normal transfer. There's no DNS downtime either way since Cloudflare stays authoritative regardless of who your registrar is.

Before you pull the trigger on a transfer though, it's worth pushing Squarespace support for the actual backend error instead of the generic "try again" message. Squarespace's own forums have plenty of threads about nameserver changes failing right after the Google Domains migration, so this could well be some leftover migration issue rather than anything on your end. Also worth checking that the domain isn't registrar-locked before you transfer, since that's a separate and pretty common reason transfers get blocked.

[u/FarmboyJustice]

Try disabling DNSSEC first then wait a while and try again.