Domain mapping is now possible on Marvelous. It is OPTIONAL and is currently in a public beta. It is not something you must do for your site to be operational.
Note: Your custom domain must not yet be a built website. If you already have an existing website you can use a subdomain to link to Marvelous instead.
In order to use a custom domain in Marvelous, you will need to:
a) Own your own domain name (e.g. yourstudio.com). If you do not have one, you can purchase one at Name.com or a registrar of your choice.
b) Have administrator access to your domain name (e.g. your login to Name.com)
c) Have an account on Marvelous
Choosing Your Custom Hostname:
For this example, let's assume you own the domain name [yourstudio.com]. You can choose a custom hostname on your domain.
For example, either live.yourstudio.com or stream.yourstudio.com are good options.
Pro tip: The text to the left of the domain name must be one word and shorter is better. Only some registrars for some top-level domains will allow you to add CNAME records at the root level of the domain, for this reason, the only supported custom domain configuration at Marvelous is to use as full hostname as described above.
To Set Up:
Go to your "Settings" page within your Marvelous site.
Scroll to the bottom of the "Settings" page and type or paste in your custom hostname under the "Custom Domain" heading (make sure you include the whole hostname and not just the domain!)
Click Next
Copy the strange-looking bit of code (this is actually another hostname) that appears under the instructions: "Please set the following value as your domain's CNAME"
Go into your domain registrar (name.com, in my example) and find your domain
Click "Manage DNS Records" or similar (this may be worded slightly differently if you use something other than Name.com, such as Bluehost, GoDaddy, etc.
Add a "CNAME" record for the domain, using the funny-looking bit of code you just copied out of your Marvelous site. You will leave everything "as is" in the CNAME record other than the "Answer:" section, which is where you will paste that bit of code that you copied from your Marvelous site.
Click "Add Record" or similar.
Done!
Pro Tip: If you are having trouble with steps 6 or 7 of this process. We recommend you google "How to add a CNAME record at _________" (fill in the blank with your domain registrar).
NOTE: It may take several hours for your new domain to begin working as expected. Part of this delay is due to domain name system caching. Once your domain is routing correctly, it may take a little longer for our system to generate the correct SSL certificate. Once that certificate is generated the security warnings will go away and the site may be used.
Custom Domains for Pages
You can have a custom domain for your landing pages. It must be different from your Marvelous site domain or use a different hostname.
For example, if your Marvelous site domain is stream.yourstudio.com, you can create a subdomain for your landing pages by following the same steps as above but use "pages" instead of "stream" in the hostname. This will make your domain for the pages become pages.yourstudio.com.
Testing Your Custom Domain
You can test your custom domain by typing in your new hostname. For example, here's a link to the custom domain for our Soulful MBA: https://soulfulmba.school/
The default URL will still work: https://app.heymarvelous.com/soulfulmba
The custom domain lets you replace the marvelous part of the URL and removes the need for you to specify your site's URL after the "https://app.heymarvelous.com/".
Custom Domain Toggles
You can toggle the following option on when using the Custom Domain function.
Use your custom domain in outgoing emails? All links on emails sent by Marvelous will use your custom domain.
Use your custom domain in widgets? This option will apply the custom domain in your widgets. People who open an event through the widget will be directed to your Hey Marvelous page using your custom domain.
Note: Some domain registrars do not allow the apex domain to be used as a CNAME. This will result in the student having to type the full address to open the page.
For example, if your custom domain is www.yourstudioname.com - typing in yourstudioname.com in the address bar will not open your studio. Students have to type the full URL which is www.yourstudioname.com.
To circumvent this, set a redirect in your domain registrar so that typing yourstudioname.com will direct to www.yourstudioname.com
If you want to see all of your links with the updated custom domain, go to your studio using the custom domain. On the top right, click on your name and then switch to the teacher dashboard.
Contact Us 🧡
For any questions reach out to us in our live chat or send us an email at team@heymarvelous.com 🙂