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Enable SiteLock TrueShield and TrueSpeed

This article is part of our series on getting started with SiteLock. For other articles and helpful tips on activating and using SiteLock services, please see the following articles:

TrueShield and TrueSpeed are available on all SiteLock plans. These solutions simultaneously protect your website from malicious traffic and deliver your content to legitimate visitors faster via a Content Delivery Network (CDN) that uses servers around the world.

If you have purchased SiteLock, we highly recommend ensuring that TrueShield and TrueSpeed are properly configured. You may activate this feature in 3 main steps:

  1. Activate TrueShield and Get Your New DNS Records
  2. Update Your Website DNS
  3. Update Your MX Record

Step 1: Navigate to Your SiteLock Dashboard

To navigate to your SiteLock Dashboard:


Billing Portal Manage Sitelock Security
  1. Log into your Billing Portal
  2. Click SiteLock Security under Manage for the hosting package you purchased SiteLock for.
  3. Click the shield icon, underneath Settings, across from the domain you wish to manage.
    Billing Portal Sitelock Overview

Step 2: Activate TrueShield and Get Your New DNS Records

To activate TrueShield/TrueSpeed and get the new DNS records required for step 3:

  1. From your SiteLock Dashboard, click the Configure TrueShield icon:

    SiteLock Configure TrueShield
    If the TrueShield icon says Upgrade instead of Configure:
    1. Click the Upgrade TrueShield icon:

      SiteLock Upgrade TrueShield
    2. You may click “SiteLock TrueShield: Basic Free!” to obtain the free TrueShield and TrueSpeed feature included in all plans.

      SiteLock Upgrade TrueShield
    3. Click submit
  2. If your site has SSL and you have SiteLock Trueshield Professional or higher, click Step 1 to allow SiteLock to detect your site’s SSL. If you have done this, SiteLock will provide you with a TXT record to apply in cPanel. Once you have added the TXT record in cPanel, it may take up to 24 hours for SiteLock to add the site to their SSL. If, for any reason, this step has not completed within 24 hours, please contact HostGator to address the issue.
    SiteLock Manage SSL Settings
  3. You will then be presented with 3 steps. If you have not upgraded TrueShield to include SSL, click Step 2. Step 1 will not be covered in this tutorial.
  4. SiteLock will provide you with DNS records to Remove and to Add in cPanel in Step 3.

    SiteLock TrueShield Wizard DNS Settings

Step 3: Update Your Website DNS

To update the DNS records for your domain:

  1. Log into cPanel.
  2. Click the Advanced DNS Zone Editor icon.

    cPanel Advanced DNS Zone Editor
  3. If you have multiple domains installed, select the applicable domain from the drop-down menu.

    cPanel Advanced DNS Zone Editor Select Domain
  4. Locate the A record for your domain and click Edit.
    cPanel Edit A Record
  5. Change the IP address to the first IP provided by SiteLock then click Edit Record.

    cPanel Save Changes to A Record
  6. Under Add A Record:
    1. Enter the applicable domain name, followed by a period, in the Name field.
    2. Enter 14400 for the TTL.
    3. Select A as the Type.
    4. Enter the second IP address provided by SiteLock in the Address field.
    5. Click Add Record.
      cPanel Create an A Record
  7. Next, locate your www Record for your domain and click Edit next to it.
    cPanel Edit www CNAME Record
  8. Select CNAME from the drop-down for Type, if it is not already selected.
  9. Enter the CNAME provided to you by SiteLock in the CNAME box.
  10. Click Edit Record to save.
    cPanel Save Changes to www CNAME Record

Both A and CNAME records take up to 8 hours to propagate, during which time your domain may not correctly resolve to SiteLock's CDN and Firewall consistently. Please continue to Step 4 to configure your mail records.

Step 4: Update Your MX Record

By default, many cPanel accounts route your email to the same location as your domain name. Routing your email through TrueShield may cause issues, so you will want to update your MX records if this is the case.

To check to see if further configuration is necessary, you may log into cPanel and click the MX Entry icon. If the record in the MX Records section of this page is already set to the mail. subdomain, no further configuration is necessary.

Example: If your domain is exampledomain.com, you would check to see if your MX record is mail.exampledomain.com.

If your MX record is not pointed to a subdomain, then you will need to configure your email to route independently of your domain. The following article will assist with making this change:

For additional questions, you can contact us any time. Our Website Security Consultants are available 24/7/365 to help, contact live support via phone or Live Chat