Connect a custom domain for your short links

Why connecting a custom domain is important

By default, you can shorten your links using one of the Hovercode default domain name like "itl.ink"

This is generally fine and a great way to test to see if the Hovercode platform works well for your business, but we highly recommend connecting a custom domain if you are using short links or dynamic QR codes in your business.

Default domains sometimes get blocked

The main reason is that sometimes people sign up and use the default shared domains to create shady links which lead the all links using those domains being blocked on certain networks and certain anti virus softwares.

We have a lot of automatic and manual measures in place to block and remove suspicious links, but sometimes some briefly slip through which is enough to get the domains flagged on some anti viruses. This causes legit links and dynamic codes to also get flagged and it can take a while for us to get our default domains removed from block lists.

The best way to avoid this is to connect a custom domain and use that for your short links and dynamic codes. Only you can shorten links with your custom domain, so no one can use them to create suspicious links, so they won't get blocked.

People trust your links more if they see your branding

For example, if your business is mysite.com, people are more likely to trust go.mysite.com/social than itl.ink/mysite-social

It's easier to migrate to another platform

As you have full control over your domain name, if you connect a custom domain and create a bunch of short links and dynamic codes, it would be possible to migrate them to another platform or your own custom solution. If you use one of our default domains, it's not possible.

What domain should I use?

If your website is "yoursite.com", you might be tempted to directly connect "yoursite.com" or "www.yourwebsite.com" to Hovercode for your custom domain.

That is not a good option as those domains are likely already being used for your website. The domain you connect to Hovercode has to use a subdomain that is not being used for anything else. People usually go with "qr.yoursite.com" or "go.yoursite.com"

Other than that main requirement, you can use whatever subdomain you want (e.g. fish.yoursite.com).

It's generally a better idea to use a short subdomain as if your domain is longer, the dynamic QR codes you generate will be more dense/complex as they need to encode a longer domain. Unless you have good reason "go.yoursite.com" or "qr.yoursite.com" are your best options.

You can only use custom domains with QR codes and short links created after they are connected

How do I connect the domain?

Connecting the domain involved a few steps. To do this, you need to have access to wherever your domain is hosted (e.g. GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare etc).

• In Hovercode, go to settings -> Custom domains and add your custom domain "e.g. go.yoursite.com"
• Follow the instructions on the next page which instruct you to go to your domain host and add a DNS entry
• Once you have added the DNS entry, go back to Hovercode and click "verify" on your newly added domains.

For go.yoursite.com, the DNS setting you add to your domain registrar should have the following details:

• Type: CNAME
• Host: go
• Value: custom_domain.hovercode.com

If you used a different subdomain, use that as the "Host" instead of "go". Host and Value can be called other things depending on the provider you use, but the DNS entry usually looks something like this:

If you are using Cloudflare, make sure you set the DNS entry to DNS only (grey cloud)

How long does it take to verify the connection?

Once you have added the CNAME to your DNS entries, verifying the connection usually works a few minutes later. Sometimes it can take a while longer, but if the settings still won't verify successfully after an hour or so, chances are something isn't right. Please get in touch if you're struggling.

What happens if I end my subscription?

If you connect a custom domain then your subscription runs out in the future, your custom domain will soon stop working, which in turn means your QR codes and short links will stop working unless you set up the redirects elsewhere.

The good news is that because you control your domain (e.g. go.yoursite.com) you can either create a custom server to reenable the QR codes or migrate to another service. This isn't simple and likely would require some development resources, but it's helpful to use custom domains if you expect to outgrow what we can offer at Hovercode at some point in the future or want to migrate to a custom solution.