Everything you need to know about Custom Domains

Setting up your own domain for the Contacts Portal to run on is not as difficult as it may seem

What are domains?

A domain name is a string of text that maps to a numeric IP address, used to access a website from client software. In other words, it will simply function as the host for your business' Contacts Portal.

It's important to understand that which domain hosts you app defines part of the URL people are heading to. Therefore, keep in mind that if your domain name is myshop.com, the url will always be example.myshop.com, as its location is hosted on that domain. It will redirect to us for the content thanks to your C-NAME record. 

Different domain types

It is possible to have more domains redirect to the same Contacts Portal. Before those, let’s look at the different types of domains.

When using our Contacts Portal there is two options of domain types:

• Subdomain (1): this is no more than a small piece of Piggy's domain, looking like this:
  

  yoursubdomain.app.piggy.eu

• Custom Domains (2): full domains that you set up, manage and maintain. This is a self-branded domain, that will look like this:

  mydomain.com / mydomain.eu / mycustomsubdomain.mydomain.com

Setting up your Subdomain (1)

A Subdomain is a domain restricted and managed on Piggy's end. It does, however, leave you with a maybe not so desirable URL visually. 

A subdomain can be created as follows:

1. Go to the Business Dashboard and navigate to Tools (9 dots) and to Contacts Portal.
2. Go to Domains and click on Add Domain
   

Setting up your Custom Domain (2)

A custom domain can be used as the URL’s base for your Contacts Portal. Setting up on your own end takes a bit more time, but is actually quite simple. 

1. Set up your domain

To set up your Custom Domain, first ask yourself the following question:

Do you currently own a domain?

• If no, get a hold of one through services that will sell unused or owned domains online. Once done the vendor where you bought the domain will be referred to as your DNS provider
• If yes, you must run your own DNS server. The people managing these servers will be able to help you out adding your C-NAME since its methods depend on this server and its setup

   2.    Setting up C-NAMES in your DNS console

It is necessary to create your C-NAMEs. In your DNS console, look for C-NAME, DNS records or something along those lines. Then, Add a record with the type C-NAME.

You will find a couple of fields:

• Name / Host / alias : This is the actual name of your subdomain and prefix to your url. So if you want the Contacts Portal to be hosted on www.myshop.com the value here would be ‘www’. If you want them to go to loyalty.myshop.com you would enter the value ‘loyalty’ and so forth.
• Target / points to : This is where you want to redirect people to that navigate to the above created URL. In this case this will have to point towards our Contacts Portal that is readied for you. The value here will always be: ‘customer.piggy.eu.’ (Yes, including the period at the end), unless otherwise informed by us (Piggy), since this points towards our Domain’s ‘customer’ subdomain, where your app actually lives.

     3. Linking it all together : the Contacts Portal

At this point everything should be set up correctly. Then, it can checked if the setup has been successful. To do that, follow the next steps:

1. In the Business Dashboard, go to Tools (9 dots) and to Contacts Portal
2. Go to Domains. Here you will find the set up domains
3. If everything has been set up correctly, the domain will be visible. It is either still being set up on our side or it is live.
   If not, an error will pop up telling you what's going on. Double check the name (URL) to be exactly the same as the name of your C-NAME record and that the target points to ‘customer.piggy.eu.’ properly.