How to use your own domain

All subscription plan levels include the option to use your own domain, rather than a subdomain of knowledgeowl.com. Learn how to set up your private domain!

Each knowledge base has its own unique KnowledgeOwl subdomain, like ours is "support.knowledgeowl.com". Your subdomain can be customized under Settings > Basic, in the Domain Settings section.

You can also set up a private domain (your own custom URL with no reference to KnowledgeOwl) and point that to your KnowledgeOwl subdomain. You or your webmaster will need to add a CNAME record for your subdomain. Once created, the private domain may take up to 24 hours to be fully synced.

If your private domain uses https:, you can use our integration with Let's Encrypt to provide an automatically renewed SSL cert for your knowledge base, too!

Here's the overall process:

  1. Have your webmaster set up a CNAME record that points your private domain (such as help.mycompany.com) to your KnowledgeOwl subdomain shown on Settings > Basic (such as mycompany.knowledgeowl.com).
  2. In Settings > Basic, add the private domain.
  3. Once the private domain has synced, generate a Let's Encrypt SSL certificate. The domain can take up to 24 hours to sync, but usually it completes in a few minutes.
  4. Once you've confirmed the private domain and SSL cert are all working properly, check a couple boxes to ensure that all requests use your private domain, rather than the subdomain.
  5. If you're using features that leverage reCAPTCHA, add a reCAPTCHA key.

See below for more detailed information on each step and how to troubleshoot errors you might run into.

Create a CNAME record on your DNS

Add a private domain

Set up your SSL cert

Make all requests use your new private domain

Add reCAPTCHA

SSL cert troubleshooting: CNAME record has not fully synced

SSL cert troubleshooting: CAA policy does not allow

Changing your private domain