Custom domains explained

Pointing your own domain at a Selected Credits portfolio: setup, DNS, and gotchas.

A custom domain lets you serve a portfolio from your own URL — yoursite.com instead of the default selectedcredits.com/yourname/yourslug.

Custom domains are a Pro feature, available on the Pro and Agency plans. You'll need a domain you already own (most registrars sell them for around $10–15/year).

What's involved

There are two sides to it:

  1. In Selected Credits, you tell us which domain you want to use for which portfolio.
  2. At your domain registrar (Namecheap, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Google Domains, etc.), you point the domain at our servers via a DNS record.

We handle SSL certificates automatically — your custom domain will serve over HTTPS without you needing to do anything extra.

Setup steps

  1. Open the portfolio you want to attach a domain to.
  2. Click + Link custom domain in the portfolio's settings (or Resume domain setup if you've started before but didn't finish).
  3. Type the domain you want to use — without https:// or www.. Examples: yoursite.com, or portfolio.yoursite.com for a subdomain.
  4. We'll register the domain and show you DNS records to add. You'll see one or two records depending on whether you're using your full domain (apex) or a subdomain.
  5. Open your registrar's dashboard and find the DNS / Manage DNS / DNS Records page. Add the records exactly as shown — there's a copy button next to each value.
  6. Save the records in your registrar.
  7. Back in Selected Credits, click Saved it — verify now. We'll check every few seconds.
  8. Once we see your domain pointing at us, the wizard flips to "You're live" and your portfolio is reachable at the custom URL.

Verification is usually under a minute, but DNS can occasionally take a few hours to update. You can close the modal and come back any time — verification picks up where it left off.

Common gotchas

Cloudflare's orange cloud

If your domain's DNS is managed in Cloudflare, set the proxy status of the records to "DNS only" (gray cloud), not "Proxied" (orange cloud). The orange-cloud proxy blocks our SSL certificate from being issued, which causes an "SSL handshake failed" error (Cloudflare 525) when visitors try to load your site. This is the single most common setup failure — if visitors are seeing 525, this is almost certainly why.

Conflicting existing records

If your domain already has DNS records at the same name pointing somewhere else (for example, a leftover A record at @ from a previous host), delete those before saving the new ones. Two records at the same name will conflict and verification will fail.

DNS propagation lag

Most registrars update DNS within a minute, but a few can take several hours. If verification fails on the first try, wait 10–15 minutes before assuming something's wrong. You can use a tool like dnschecker.org to see whether your records are visible from different parts of the internet.

Don't include https:// or www.

When entering the domain in the wizard, type just the domain itself: yoursite.com, not https://www.yoursite.com. We add the protocol for you, and we recommend a separate www CNAME record so visitors who type www.yoursite.com still find you (the wizard shows it when relevant).

What happens if you stop using Selected Credits

If you remove the custom domain from a portfolio in Selected Credits (via the wizard's "Remove this domain" link), we immediately detach it on our side. Visitors going to your custom URL will see a server error until you either re-link the domain or update your DNS at your registrar to point elsewhere. Search engines will gradually drop the URL from their index. The domain itself is unaffected — it stays at your registrar; we just stop accepting traffic for it.

If you delete a portfolio that has a live custom domain attached, deletion is blocked until you remove the domain first. This is intentional — accidentally deleting a portfolio shouldn't silently break your custom URL.

If you cancel your subscription or downgrade below Pro while a custom domain is attached, your domain stays live for the remainder of your current billing cycle and then auto-detaches at the cycle's end. We send a notice before this happens so you have time to either upgrade back, point the domain elsewhere, or remove it on your own terms. After auto-detach, visitors hitting the custom URL see a server error until you update your DNS at your registrar — the domain itself stays with you, we just stop serving it.