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Using a Custom Domain

Keep your traffic on your own domain.

If you already own a domain, you can now use your campsite but keep your domain and your traffic.

What is a Custom Domain?

A Custom Domain is a domain name (www.mybrand.com) you independently buy from a 3rd party domain registrar. They cost on average $10-$15 a year, depending on the seller and estimated domain name value.

What is covered in this support article:

Setting Custom Domains up on Campsite

Make sure you're signed up for Campsite Pro.

First, make sure you have purchased a domain name from a registrar and you have an account login to make DNS changes.
Here are a few examples of domain registrars:

  • Go Daddy
  • Namecheap

Once you have a custom domain purchased, follow the steps below to set it up on Campsite.

  1. Go to your settings page or directly to the domain page
  2. Click on the 'Domains and Urls' link in the sidebar
    Configure Domain Settings
  3. If you haven't already, set a custom campsite subdomain
  4. Click 'SETUP' on the right next to your custom domain. Setup Custom Domain
  5. Enter your custom domain name and then click SAVE. Set Custom Domain
  6. It takes a minute to set up the new custom domain. You will then have to add some DNS CNAME records to verify that you own the domain.

Adding DNS Records

  1. Log into your domain registrar.
  2. Locate your Domain Name System (DNS) settings and enter the two CNAMEs CNAME Records The first CNAME record might not need '.aws.' at the end but rather '.aws' to work.

  3. Add the two CNAME records listed on the Campsite domain settings page. Below is an example of what it could look like on your registrar.

    Adding CNAME

    You can see in the example above, that instead of entering _xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.social.mydomain.com, we entered _xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.social. The rest of the domain is almost always implicitly added by your domain registrar. If you enter the full CNAME, we won't be able to detect you've added it.

  4. It could take anywhere from 10-60 minutes for us to detect and validate the CNAMEs once you've added them. If it's been an hour and you're CNAMEs aren't validated, please contact us. Like the example below, you'll see "CNAMEs validated.". Validated CNAMEs

Once you've added DNS records it can take up to 2 hours for your custom domain to become available.

Troubleshooting

My CNAMEs aren't being validated

If it's been a few hours and your CNAMEs aren't validated, please reach out to use so we can double check them.

Common issues with domain registrars

Cloudflare

Cloudflare will proxy the DNS entries that are added by default. When that happens, we won't be able to tell you've added our CNAMEs. Make sure to set the "Proxy status" to off.

Adding a DNS record in Cloudflare

Adding custom HTML code

Once you've started the process of adding a custom domain you'll be able to add some custom HTML code. This can be useful if you'd like to add some JavaScript code to your custom domain. An example would be a snippet of code that needs to be added to verify your affiliate status.

With great power comes great responsibility! Be careful of what you enter in this field, as it could break something.

Custom code input

Still have questions? Contact us.