Custom domain — your public pages on your own address

By default your public pages live at a TrailsIQ address built from your organization's slug. A custom domain puts them on your own instead — trails.yourclub.org, or yourclub.org itself — with no change to how you use TrailsIQ.

What you get

Everything on your public hub answers on your own hostname: the trail list, individual trail pages, conditions, the public daily report, and, if you have built a website, every page of it — news, events, the lot.

The dashboard, the Field App and your logins are unaffected and stay where they are. This is about the pages you send the public to, not the ones your crew works in.

Custom domains are a Pro feature.

Choosing a hostname

There are two good choices, and which one is right depends on what is already at your domain.

A subdomain — trails.yourclub.org, map.yourpark.gov, conditions.yourtrust.org.uk — sits alongside whatever you already have. Your existing website keeps working and the trails section appears next to it. This is the choice when your organization already has a main website it is keeping, and it works with every DNS provider.

Your root domain — yourclub.org with nothing in front — makes TrailsIQ your organization's real website. This is the choice when you have built your site with the website builder and want it to be the address people already know. Two things to know first:

• It replaces whatever is there now. Pointing the root at TrailsIQ takes over from your current website the moment it goes live, so make sure the new site is ready and anything you need from the old one has moved.
• Your DNS provider has to support it. A root domain cannot carry an ordinary CNAME record, so providers offer a stand-in under one of three names: ALIAS, ANAME, or a CNAME they flatten. Most modern providers have one. If yours offers none of them, use a subdomain instead.

www comes with a root domain. Attach yourclub.org and www.yourclub.org is set up beside it. Anybody who types the www lands on the same site, at the root address, so there is one site with one address rather than two copies of it.

Pick something short and guessable. It goes on signs.

Setting it up

Settings → Custom domain.

1. Enter your hostname — for example trails.example.com or example.com — and save.
2. TrailsIQ shows you the DNS records to add. For a subdomain that is one CNAME. For a root domain it is two: an ALIAS (or ANAME, or flattened CNAME) for the root, and an ordinary CNAME for www. Each comes with the exact name and target to use.
3. Add those records with your DNS provider — wherever your domain is managed: your registrar, your hosting company, or your IT team's control panel. This is the only step that happens outside TrailsIQ.
4. Wait for it to verify. TrailsIQ checks every few minutes on its own, and Re-check status asks straight away. Each hostname shows its own status.

Once the status reads live, the domain is serving. A certificate is issued for you automatically — there is nothing to buy, install or renew.

What "pending" means

A domain sits in pending from the moment you add it until the DNS record you created is visible and the certificate is issued.

Pending domains do not serve anything. That is deliberate: a half-provisioned domain that answered would show visitors a broken or insecure page with your name on it, which is worse than a domain that is not ready yet. Until it goes live, your existing TrailsIQ address keeps working exactly as before, so nothing is down while you wait.

With a root domain, the root and www verify separately. The root can be live while www is still pending; www starts sending visitors to the root as soon as its own status reads live.

Most of the wait is DNS propagation, which is out of anybody's hands — usually minutes, occasionally hours depending on your provider and the record's previous TTL. If it is still pending the next day, the record is almost always slightly wrong: check for a trailing dot, a duplicated domain suffix (trails.example.com.example.com is the classic), or an old record for the same name still sitting there and winning.

Changing to a different domain

Once a domain is live, Change domain on the same screen registers a new one beside it. Your pages stay up the whole way through:

1. The current domain keeps serving while the new one verifies. Add the new domain's DNS records exactly as you did the first time.
2. They swap on their own the moment the new domain is live. Nobody has to come back and press anything.
3. The old domain sends visitors to the new one for 90 days, keeping whatever page they asked for. A link on a sign, a poster or a bookmark keeps working while you replace them.

After the 90 days the old domain stops answering, so take its DNS records down then.

Changed your mind before the swap? Cancel the switch drops the new domain and leaves the current one exactly as it was. Update signage once the new domain is live, not before.

Removing it

Remove the domain from the same settings screen. Your public pages revert to the TrailsIQ address immediately, and for a root domain the www goes with it. If you are moving to another domain, use Change domain instead, so nothing goes dark in between.

Take the DNS records down too, or you leave them pointing at something that no longer claims them. If the domain was your root, put your previous website's records back at the same time, or the address will show nothing.

Common gotchas

• A root domain replaces your current website. Use a subdomain if you are keeping the site you have.
• A root domain needs an ALIAS, ANAME or flattened CNAME. An ordinary CNAME on the root is refused by most providers, and on the ones that accept it, it can stop your email arriving.
• The DNS change is yours to make. We can tell you the exact records, but only whoever controls the domain can create them.
• An old record for the same name will beat the new one. If the name already had an A or CNAME record, delete it rather than adding a second. With a root domain, check www as well as the root.
• Nothing serves until it is live. Do not print the new address on anything until the status says so.
• Change, don't remove and re-add. Removing takes your pages offline on that address at once; changing keeps them up and redirects the old address.
• Only the public pages move. Your team still signs in at the usual TrailsIQ address; you do not get trails.yourclub.org/login.
• It is a Pro feature. On a lower plan the section explains this rather than letting you configure something that will not switch on.