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<html><head><title>How can I check if a custom domain is set up correctly?</title></head><body>
<strong>How can I check if a custom domain is set up correctly?</strong><br />
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When you get a ticket about a custom domain that isn’t working, one quick way to see if they’ve set up their domain properly is to check their DNS records.<br />
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To do that within The Admin dashboard, use the <strong>Lookup Domain DNS</strong> tool:<br />
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<img src="//cdn.clickmagick.com/images/user/faqs/faq322dnslookup.jpg" /><br />
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There are two cases to check for: Using the root domain, or using a subdomain.<br />
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<strong>Using the Root Domain</strong><br />
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To use the root domain, <code>bestcoolproducts.com</code>, their A record must point to a ClickMagick IP with no hostname, represented by the <code>@</code> sign:<br />
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<code>A @ bestcoolproducts.com 50.97.212.250</code><br />
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If they want to use their root domain as a <em>tracking</em> domain, they must use one of these two IP addresses (doesn’t matter which one):<br />
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<code>50.97.212.250</code>, or<br />
<code>50.97.244.203</code><br />
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For rotator domains, they must use<br />
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<code>50.97.212.251</code>, or<br />
<code>50.23.66.138</code><br />
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Again it doesn’t matter which one they choose.<br />
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<div class="faq-caution"><b>Caution:</b> They absolutely cannot have duplicate A Records with the <code>@</code> sign or they will get unreliable results. Clicks will be redirected to the different IP addresses seemingly at random. Have users delete any erroneous duplicates.</div>
<div class="faq-note"><b>Note:</b> Normally, if the <code>www</code> subdomain points to ClickMagick, the A Record would also point to ClickMagick so that <code>bestcoolproducts.com</code> and <code>www.bestcoolproducts.com</code> would behave identically. While normal, this is not a requirement.<br />
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We’ve seen users point <code>bestcoolproducts.com</code> at their blog while simulaneously configuring <code>www.bestcoolproducts.com</code> as a tracking domain...<br />
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Something else we’ve seen is having <code>bestcoolproducts.com</code> configured as a <em>tracking</em> domain, while <code>www.bestcoolproducts.com</code> is configured as a <em>rotator</em> domain. Try keeping <em>that</em> straight!<br />
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If you see these types of unusual settings, you can confirm with the user that it’s what they intend, but the settings aren’t incorrect in any way.</div>
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<strong>Using Subdomains</strong><br />
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If they want to use a subdomain, such as <code>www</code> or <code>track</code> (or <code>rot</code>, or whatever) the CNAME record should point to <code>www.clkmg.com</code> for a tracking domain or to <code>www.clkmr.com</code> for a rotator domain:<br />
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<code>CNAME www bestcoolproducts.com www.clkmg.com</code><br />
<code>CNAME rot bestcoolproducts.com www.clkmr.com</code><br />
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Here again, you can’t have duplicate <code>CNAME</code> records with the same hostname.<br />
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Duplicate CNAME entries should be deleted.<br />
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<div class="faq-note"><b>Note:</b> Sometimes you will see experienced users set up their subdomains using A Records, like this:<br />
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<code>A www bestcoolproducts.com 50.97.212.250<br />
A rot bestcoolproducts.com 50.97.212.251</code><br />
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That’s perfectly fine too. A Records use IP addresses; CNAME Records use textual domain names. Of course, you can’t have both an A Record and a CNAME Record with the same hostname:<br />
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<code>A www bestcoolproducts.com 50.97.212.250<br />
CNAME www bestcoolproducts.com www.clkmr.com</code><br />
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That’s a conflict. One of them needs to be deleted.</div>
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<div class="faq-caution"><b>Caution:</b> Setting the CNAME Record up without a hostname is NEVER valid:<br />
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<code>CNAME @ bestcoolproducts.com www.clkmg.com</code><br />
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Setting the CNAME Record to the <code>@</code> sign may appear to work on the surface, but it breaks in a whole bunch of subtle ways.</div>
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<div class="faq-tip"><b>Historical Note:</b> A lot of users think that <code>domain.com</code> and <code>www.domain.com</code> are one-and-the-same thing, that they’re interchangeable, when, in fact, they are two <em>completely different</em> domains and can be configured totally differently.<br />
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In the early days of the Internet, programmers would store their HTML files in their root directory (e.g., <code>domain.com</code>) but that got messy when they wanted to put other, more important stuff in their root directory.<br />
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One day someone thought, “We’re calling this new thing the World Wide Web, so why don’t we just use a <code>www.</code> subdomain and stick all our World Wide Web files there so we leave our root domain alone?” And that’s how usage of the <code>www.</code> subdomain for website files was born.<br />
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Then came along hosting providers where domains were used only for website files and they saw no reason to put all the World Wide Web files in a different directory, so they stored them in the root directory and just pointed the <code>www.</code> subdomain right back at the root. And voilà, that’s how the root domain and the <code>www.</code> subdomain became entwined in peoples’ minds as one and the same.<br />
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Today, website files are stored in all sorts of places on web servers, but the <em>illusion</em> that the root domain and <code>www.</code> subdomain are the same is still maintained through DNS and other settings. Because that’s what people expect...</div>
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