Setting up a Custom Domain

By default your HelpGuides portal is accessible at helpguides.app/{your-slug}. With a custom domain you can serve it from your own subdomain instead — for example, help.yourcompany.com or docs.yourcompany.com — keeping the experience fully branded.

Before you start

1. Decide on a subdomain. Custom domains must be a subdomain (e.g. help.yourcompany.com). Bare apex domains (yourcompany.com) are not supported.
2. Have your DNS credentials ready. You'll need to log in to whichever registrar or DNS provider manages your domain.
3. Open HelpGuides editor → Customize Portal → Custom Domain and enter your chosen subdomain. HelpGuides will show you the CNAME target to point it at — copy it before you move on.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare is the most common setup. One important note: set the record to DNS-only (grey cloud), not Proxied (orange cloud). Proxying a CNAME to an external host that issues its own TLS certificate will cause SSL errors.

1. Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard and select your domain.
2. Go to DNS → Records → Add record.
3. Fill in:
   • Type: CNAME
   • Name: help (or whatever subdomain you chose — just the prefix, not the full domain)
   • Target: paste the CNAME target from HelpGuides
   • Proxy status: DNS only (grey cloud)
   • TTL: Auto
4. Click Save.
5. Back in HelpGuides, click Verify to confirm the record is live. DNS changes on Cloudflare typically propagate within a few minutes.

Why DNS-only? When Proxied is on, Cloudflare terminates TLS and re-issues its own certificate. HelpGuides also provisions a certificate for your subdomain on its end — these two don't play well together and will produce ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH or similar errors. Switching to DNS-only passes requests straight through and lets HelpGuides handle TLS.

Namecheap

1. Log in to Namecheap and go to Domain List → Manage next to your domain.
2. Click the Advanced DNS tab.
3. Under Host Records, click Add New Record.
4. Fill in:
   • Type: CNAME Record
   • Host: help (the subdomain prefix only)
   • Value: paste the CNAME target from HelpGuides
   • TTL: Automatic
5. Click the green checkmark to save.

Namecheap's DNS typically propagates within 30 minutes.

GoDaddy

1. Log in to GoDaddy and go to My Products → DNS next to your domain.
2. Click Add New Record.
3. Fill in:
   • Type: CNAME
   • Name: help
   • Value: paste the CNAME target from HelpGuides (remove any trailing dot if GoDaddy adds one automatically)
   • TTL: 1 hour (or the lowest available)
4. Click Save.

GoDaddy's DNS can take up to 1 hour to propagate.

Google Domains / Squarespace DNS

Google Domains was acquired by Squarespace in 2023. The DNS interface is the same.

1. Log in to domains.squarespace.com and select your domain.
2. Go to DNS → Custom records.
3. Click Create new record and fill in:
   • Host name: help
   • Type: CNAME
   • TTL: 3600 (or the minimum allowed)
   • Data: paste the CNAME target from HelpGuides
4. Click Save.

Other DNS providers

The steps are the same regardless of provider — you're adding one CNAME record:

Field	Value
Type	CNAME
Name / Host	help (your chosen subdomain prefix)
Value / Target / Points to	The CNAME target shown in HelpGuides
TTL	3600 or Auto

If your provider asks for a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) in the Name field, enter help.yourcompany.com. with a trailing dot.

Verifying and activating

Once you've saved the DNS record, go back to HelpGuides editor → Customize Portal → Custom Domain and click Verify Domain. HelpGuides checks for the CNAME and, once found, automatically provisions a TLS certificate (usually within 1–2 minutes).

If verification fails, wait 10–15 minutes for DNS to propagate and try again. Most providers propagate within an hour; in rare cases it can take up to 48 hours.

After activation

• Your portal will be accessible at your custom domain immediately after verification.
• The old helpguides.app/{slug} URL continues to work and redirects to your custom domain.
• Your TLS certificate renews automatically — no action needed.

Troubleshooting

Verification keeps failing — double-check the CNAME target is copied exactly as shown in HelpGuides (no extra spaces, no missing characters). Use a DNS lookup tool like dnschecker.org to confirm the record is live globally.

SSL / certificate error after verification — if you're on Cloudflare, make sure the record is set to DNS only (grey cloud), not Proxied. See the Cloudflare section above.

"CNAME flattening" on Cloudflare — Cloudflare applies CNAME flattening to apex records automatically, but subdomains are passed through as normal CNAMEs. If you see unexpected behaviour, confirm you added the record under the subdomain (help), not the apex (@).

Custom domain stopped working after changing DNS provider — you'll need to add the CNAME record again at the new provider. HelpGuides reads live DNS, so the record must exist at your current authoritative nameservers.