Custom Domain Names for Your Online Store
Here are a few options that will allow you to use Custom Domain Name for your Online Store
Option 1: Domain Forwarding
This option allows you to use your Custom Domain Name and redirect your customers to your Online Store and automatically update the address bar URL to your Default Subdomain . Some domain registrars like GoDaddy and Namecheap have the option to forward with masking also known as link cloaking, which will redirect your customers to your Online Store and prevent the forwarded Default Subdomain Name from appearing on the address bar URL.
How Forward Only works: Say that you have a domain name ‘www.myexample.com’, and you forward your domain to point to your Online Store Subdomain. When your customers go to ‘www.example.com’, they will be directed to your Online Store and update the browser URL to ‘http://myexample.myhelcimstore.com’
How Forward with Masking works: Say that you have a domain name ‘www.myexample.com’, and you forward your domain to point to our Online Store Subdomain. When your customers go to ‘www.example.com’, they will be able to start shopping on the Online Store and the address URL will still remain as ‘www.example.com’.
Please be advised that Forwarding with masking can be problematic as site visitors are not able to see the direct addresses of the pages that they are visiting on a webpage, which means they are not able to bookmark or share specific sections of a website. If you have content that you would like your customer to share and link back to, they are unable to because they do not have the actual URL for each page of your website. To modern web browsers the masking looks very suspicious and most browsers will either refuse to load the “masked” site or will display a warning message saying the site cannot be trusted. This feature is inherently insecure and has numerous other negative side-effects, including poor search engine rankings.
To use Domain Forwarding with your domain registrar, please ensure you complete the following steps:
- Ensure your Custom Domain Name is pointing to the default nameservers with your domain registrar
- Include any DNS records in your domain settings
- Find a setting that allows you to
Forwardyour Domain Name to another address. Most domain registrars call this Domain Fowarding - Add your default Subdomain of your Online Store for the Forward address
please follow the intructions below under 'Viewing your Default Subdomain' to help you find your default subdomain for your Online Store
- Select Permanent Forwarding
- Select between Forward only or Forward with Masking , if your domain registrar offers both
Please note these settings can take 24-48 hours for your forwarding to take effect. We recommend making the changes outside of office hours to avoid any downtime.
Option 2: Add an Online Store button on your existing website
If you have an existing website built using JavaScript, HTML, CSS, or any third-party website builder, you can customize the button on your website and link it to your default Subdomain Name with Helcim.
Viewing your Default Subdomain for the Online Store
To view your Default Subdomain, your Online Store needs to be active. You can activate your Online Store by going into your Dashboard, then going to Online Store, then go to Store Overview then activate your website and hit Save
Once your Online Store is active, you will see the Default Subdomain appear next to Your Website URL as shown below.
Alternatively, if you've used Custom Domain Name in the past, you can find the default subdomain by going to your Dashboard, then going to Online Store, then go to Domain Name from the left sidebar. Under Hosting Mode, select Default Subdmain and your sub-domain name will appear as shown below.
