Using your own domain

You can serve a brand hub on a domain you own instead of on its stylehub.cloud subdomain. Add one DNS record, press verify, and the certificate is handled for you.

WhereDashboard, Domains, Custom domain

What the domain serves

One domain belongs to one brand and serves that brand the way its own subdomain does.

A single manual cannot have a domain of its own. It can have its own subdomain on stylehub.cloud. See Addresses, or the same list on Domains (opens in a new tab) under Manual addresses.

Before you start

• A paid plan. The plan of the account that owns the brand, not the plan of whoever is looking.
• The permission. Connecting, verifying and disconnecting all need Edit workspace settings and domains, which owners and admins have. Without it the card reads Your role cannot manage domains. See Roles.
• Access to the DNS of the domain, at your registrar or wherever the zone is hosted.
• A published primary manual, if you want the root of the domain to answer with something. See Publishing.

Connecting a domain

1. Open Domains (opens in a new tab) and find the Custom domain card at the bottom of the page.
2. Type the domain into Domain. Leave off https:// and any path.
3. Press Save domain. It answers Saved. Add the DNS record below, then verify. and the badge turns to Pending.
4. Add the DNS record the card now shows, at your DNS provider.
5. Come back and press I added the record, verify. If the record is visible, the badge turns to Verified and the domain starts serving.

The DNS record

The card writes it out under 1. Add this DNS record at your registrar with your own values. For a brand at acme.stylehub.cloud and a domain of brand.yourcompany.com it reads:

Most DNS forms want the name as a label, so brand.yourcompany.com is typed as brand in a zone for yourcompany.com. The value is typed in full.

brand.yourcompany.com.  300  IN  CNAME  acme.stylehub.cloud.

Apex or www

A domain like yourcompany.com with nothing in front of it is the apex, and most DNS providers refuse a CNAME there. Two ways around it, both accepted:

• Use a subdomain instead. brand.yourcompany.com or www.yourcompany.com takes a plain CNAME.
• Point the apex at the same addresses as stylehub.cloud. One address in common is enough. ALIAS, ANAME or CNAME flattening at the apex produces that.

Pending and Verified

Saving the field puts the domain back to Pending every time, including when you correct a typo in a domain that was already verified. Press verify again.

Connecting, verifying and disconnecting are each written into the activity log with the name of whoever did it. See History and versions.

The certificate

There is nothing to buy, upload or install. Stylehub issues and renews the TLS certificate for a connected domain once the DNS record is in place. Removing the record later takes the domain out of service.

When it does not verify

Pressing I added the record, verify when the record cannot be seen changes nothing and says:

1. Wait, then press it again. A new record is not visible everywhere at once. If an old record with a long TTL was there before, the wait can be that long.
2. Check the name. A record added as brand.yourcompany.com inside a zone that already appends yourcompany.com becomes brand.yourcompany.com.yourcompany.com.
3. Check the value. It is acme.stylehub.cloud, not stylehub.cloud on its own, not a manual's own subdomain, and not a full URL.
4. Look for a record already there. A name cannot hold a CNAME beside an A or an AAAA record. Remove the old one first.
5. Turn off any proxy, such as the orange cloud at Cloudflare. Set the record to DNS only while you verify.
6. Press verify again. There is no penalty for pressing it as often as you like.

What the form refuses

The card shows the domain in lower case, whatever case you typed.

Disconnecting

Disconnect asks first, in a dialog titled Disconnect this domain? The button that does it is Disconnect domain. What happens:

• The domain stops serving. Nothing in the manual changes, and the brand address keeps serving as it did.
• The name is free again immediately, for you or for anyone else.
• The DNS record is yours and stays where it is until you remove it.
• Reconnecting later starts at Pending again, even with the record untouched. Press verify once.

Upgrades and downgrades

• Upgrading to Pro or Business makes the form usable at once. Nothing has to be re-entered.
• Downgrading deletes nothing. A verified domain keeps serving. The card says is still connected from a previous plan beside the name, with Disconnect next to it.
• Verifying after a downgrade is refused: Custom domains are part of the Pro and Business plans. Upgrade to verify one.

The rest of what a downgrade freezes is in Downgrading.

After it is verified