Setting up a custom subdomain is a great way to integrate your ShootProof galleries and your website! It requires some setup with your domain registrar. If this sounds like a foreign language to you, and you do not know how to access your DNS Settings within your own website, you'll likely want to have your web designer make these changes for you, or contact the support team at your domain registrar and ask them to assist you.
You do not need to set up a custom domain in order to use ShootProof!
What is a custom subdomain?
For the ultimate professional website appearance, you can create a custom subdomain of your own website. When your clients access their galleries, instead of seeing yourstudioname.shootproof.com as the website url, your clients will see something like proofs.yourdomain.com or clients.yourdomain.com. Your ShootProof galleries and Portfolio Website will look as though they are a part of your regular website.
* Please note that we are unable to integrate your top level domain (ex: www.yourwebsite.com) with ShootProof at this time.
How do I set up my custom subdomain?
STEP ONE
In your domain registrar:
1. Log in to your account on your registrar's website.
2. Go to the area where you can create and manage CNAME records. This may be in a section called DNS Management or Name Server Management. If you don't see any sections like that, it's possible that you will have to enable advanced settings or contact your domain's support to create a CNAME record.
3. Decide on the CNAME you'd like to use. This can be something like "clients" or "proofs" or "photos." Then your custom subdomain will look like clients.yourwebsite.com or proofs.yourwebsite.com or photos.yourwebsite.com.
4. Delete any existing CNAME entries for the address you want to use with your custom subdomain, if there are any. If you plan to transfer an existing web address to ShootProof, you may want to copy any content currently at that address elsewhere first, before deleting anything.
5. If your service requires you to select a type of record to enter, select CNAME record.
6. In the field 'host name' or 'alias' field, you'll enter the subdomain you've selected. For example, if you picked clients.yourwebsite.com as your address, enter only the word clients here. If you chose proofs.yourwebsite.com to be your custom subdomain, enter only the word proofs here.
7. In the 'value', 'destination', or 'points to' field, enter clients.shootproof.com
Important: Regardless of what you've set your subdomain to be in your DNS settings, you will always enter clients.shootproof.com here.
8. Save!
STEP TWO
In your ShootProof account:
1. Click Studio at the top of your screen and navigate to the Portfolio Website tab.
2. In the Custom Subdomain section, enter the new subdomain you created (for example, clients.yourwebsite.com or proofs.yourwebsite.com) in the text box called I set up a CNAME with my registrar.