Learn what happens to a domain within the Cloudflare network during onboarding, activation, or deletion.
Overview
When a domain is successfully added to Cloudflare, it appears as Active in the dashboard.

A Cloudflare domain’s nameservers are periodically checked to confirm that the nameservers point to Cloudflare. However, if a check fails or if you do not complete the sign-up process you may see a different status based on where you left off in the process. You will receive an email to the email address on file when your domain’s status changes.
Possible domain statuses include:
- Setup: the sign-up process was initiated but the domain has not been authenticated
- Pending Nameserver Update:
- if using Cloudflare as your authoritative DNS: a Cloudflare plan type was selected and domain nameservers may have been changed, but are not yet authenticated
- if using a CNAME set up, the verification .txt record to validate ownership of your domain was not added or authenticated at your authoritative DNS
- Active: Cloudflare has authenticated the nameserver changes and traffic can be proxied to Cloudflare.
- Moved: your domain has failed multiple DNS checks, indicating that your authoritative DNS no longer points to Cloudflare nameservers.
To ensure that your domain remains Active, complete the sign-up process as described in Getting Started with Cloudflare and ensure that your DNS settings are properly configured.