Custom Domains

On our Pro plan or above, you can configure your platform to be located at a domain of your choosing. This will replace the default yoursubdomain.heightsplatform.com.

How to Setup Your Custom Domain

After purchasing a domain name from the registrar of your choice, login to your domain registrar and edit the DNS settings as follows:

Create a CNAME that points to secure.heightsplatform.com. You will likely also want to set a 301 redirect so visitors to the non-www version of your site will be forwarded to the www version or vice-versa.

This process will be the same for most popular domain name registrars ie: Google Domains, Namecheap, GoDaddy, etc. (If you are using Cloudflare, please see the next section below for additional instructions.)

1. Create a CNAME for "www" (or any subdomain of your choice for your custom domain, ie: "courses", "members", etc) that points to secure.heightsplatform.com. If there is an existing CNAME record for www, adjust it to secure.heightsplatform.com. Please notice there is no need to set up a subdomain in your Cpanel if your domain is located on a hosting provider. You will only need to create a single CNAME in your DNS records. 
2. After you have made this change, make sure that you tell your Heights Platform account the domain you would like to use by typing it into the custom domain field of your account settings. It is important to type the domain in the same way that you have configured your CNAME. For example, if your CNAME is configured for www then type www.yourdomain.com when inputting your custom domain. If your CNAME is for a subdomain other than www, for example, "courses", then type courses.yourdomain.com when inputting your custom domain. (Also see: Using a subdomain for your custom domain)
3. You will want to set up a permanent 301 redirect for your domain inside your domain account so that students are always directed to the correct version of your domain and can visit your platform. Usually, this means redirecting the non-www version to always change to www. This is an important step for any website and if you skip it then students may not be able to access your platform.
4. After adding the CNAME and saving your custom domain in your account settings, try visiting your domain after a few minutes to see if it displays your Heights Platform account. This process usually takes only a few minutes, but it can sometimes take up to 24 hours for DNS changes to propagate across the internet. https://www.whatsmydns.net/#CNAME/ is a good service to check your domain's current propagation status.
5. The first time you visit your custom domain, we will check it and automatically provision a free secure certificate with Let's Encrypt for your domain so that your domain can be served over HTTPS, providing security for you and your students. We'll automatically manage renewals for you. (If you receive a 502 error when visiting your new custom domain, please ensure that you do not have an SSL certificate enabled from your registrar or DNS provider. Since we already offer a certificate for your website, duplicate certificates will conflict with each other.) If you see your program landing or login page when navigating to your custom domain, you are all set!

If you are unsure how to navigate and adjust your domain's DNS settings we recommend contacting your domain registrar's support. They will be able to help you take care of this process. You can also reach out to our support team!

Steps for using Cloudflare with a custom domain on Heights: 

We have an enterprise-level account with Cloudflare to offer your site the best protection available. 

If you have a Cloudflare account and would like to connect your custom domain to Heights, you would follow the same steps to have your CNAME for "www" or the subdomain of your choice point to "secure.heightsplatform.com". 

Please also ensure that after doing this, your SSL in Cloudflare is set to "Full", (not "Full Strict" or "Flexible"). Finally, if you have any Page Rules in Cloudflare to force your site to always use HTTPS, you should turn those off since Heights is already enforcing this for you.

It is important to ensure you have your SSL settings configured correctly in Cloudflare or this will cause a conflict in your browser when trying to visit your account. Without a valid SSL certificate, it will not be possible to collect payments from your students and your site's users will not be secure.

Haven't linked your custom domain to your account yet? Add a custom domain via your Account Settings page. Want to change the subdomain of your Heights Platform account? Please contact us!

NOTE: You may not be able to access your program via your custom domain, and we may not be able to generate an SSL certificate for your domain if these steps are not followed correctly. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about domain setup!