Configuring a custom domain of your choice for your survey URL

Configuring a custom domain of your choice for your survey URL

When you build a survey with SurveySparrow, the survey link (for sharing surveys) by default has SurveySparrow's domain, i.e., yourcompany.surveysparrow.com. However, if there is a way to have a custom domain of your choice, like your organization's name or your existing business domain, as the survey URL, it would offer better brand personalization and maintain brand identity.

The Custom Domain helps you configure the survey URL into your own domain that reflects your brand.

To configure the custom domain for your SurveySparrow account in the SurveyURL, you will need to do the following steps:

Authorize the Custom Domain on SurveySparrow

1. Sign in to your SurveySparrow account.

2. On your account home page, go to Settings. Under Account Settings, navigate to the Domain section.

3. Click Add Custom domain.

4. Enter a domain URL of your choice and click Confirm.

5. Make a note of the TYPE, NAME, and VALUE details. This will be used to configure a DNS record and point it to your SurveySparrow account.

So these are the respective values:

Configure the DNS records in your server

1. Head to the domain provider administrator tools and advance to the DNS settings. Select Manage DNS to access your DNS records.

2. Under DNS management, there will be DNS records that are already available.

3. Add a new DNS record of the type - CNAME.

Note: These above steps might vary based on where you are hosting your domain, please contact your web hosting company for more help. The method however remains the same.

Note: When filling the 'Points to Value' field (or corresponding field in your setup), make sure to enter the Value from SurveySparrow (in the format custom-domain-region.surveysparrow.com, where region is the data center region where your account is hosted).

4. Enter the Name and Value details copied from your SurveySparrow account and Save the CNAME record.

Note: If your Domain Host is asking for a TTL (Time-To-Live), you can enter a value between 30 minutes to 1 hour, or else leave it blank or default.

Please remember that each domain provider will have their own format for entering the host details. Ensure to get that right. Contact your domain host in case of doubt.

5. Now you have added a CNAME record successfully and ready to be verified.

6. Head back to your SurveySparrow account and click on Verify Records.

Note: Once the above steps are all successful, anticipate a buffer time for the verification to be completed. There could be a certain amount of time before these configurations reflect with your DNS host.

Note: If you are utilizing a DNS hosting service to host your domain, please ensure that you disable the proxy feature when adding the CNAME record.

7. Once verification is successful, you can see the Verified label for the domain.

8. After the verification is completed successfully, your custom domain is ready to be used and your survey URL will now possess your own brand identity.

Adding SSL Certificate

Once the custom domain has been verified, the SSL will be automatically added to the record from our end. No further action will be necessary on your part.

Note:

• SurveySparrow now supports custom domains only via CNAME records. Mapping your domain directly to an IP address (A record) is no longer supported for new custom domain setups.
• Existing custom domain configurations will continue to function as-is. However, all newly configured custom domains must use the CNAME-based method described in this article.
• If you only need to change the survey link, you can modify the survey URL slug (the part after the domain) from Survey settings → Survey URL.
• Note: The domain/subdomain portion of the survey URL cannot be removed entirely, as it is a required component of the URL structure.
• Note: This article does not cover removing or deleting a configured custom domain from an account.
• Ensure that your CNAME record is not routed through any proxy or CDN service, as we verify custom domains only using direct CNAME records.
• Custom Domain is configured at the account level. Once you add/verify a custom domain, it applies to all surveys in that account and cannot be set differently for individual surveys. If you need different company names/domains for different sets of surveys, you’ll need to manage them in separate accounts/workspaces (one per brand/domain).
• Once a custom domain is configured at the account level, there is no per-survey option to bypass it and use the default SurveySparrow domain for a specific survey.
  
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