Guide

Custom link domain (CNAME)

Your link domain is a subdomain you own, such as links.yourcompany.com, that serves your Silo signup pages, tracked links, open tracking and double opt-in confirmation pages.

Why Silo requires your own link domain

Mailbox providers and blocklists judge the domains in the links of an email, not only the sender. If every account's links pointed at one shared Silo domain, one account's spam could get that domain blocklisted and drag everyone else down with it: shared reputation by another route. So each account's links live on its own domain.

Until your link domain is verified:

• your hosted signup pages aren't served,
• your emails go out without open tracking and without rewritten (tracked) links,
• unsubscribe links use Silo's own domain, because the law requires a working unsubscribe whatever else is set up.

Set it up

1. Choose a subdomain you don't use for anything else. links., go. or email. followed by your domain all work.
2. In Silo, open Settings and add the hostname under your link domain.
3. Silo shows a CNAME record. At your DNS host, create it exactly as shown:

   Type	Name	Value
   CNAME	links.yourcompany.com	the target shown in Silo

4. Come back to Silo and run the check. Once the CNAME resolves, the domain is verified and an HTTPS certificate is issued for it automatically.

Things to know

• DNS takes time. Most DNS hosts publish new records within minutes, but it can take longer. If the check fails, wait and try again.
• Proxied DNS: if your DNS host offers a proxy or CDN mode (for example Cloudflare's orange cloud), turn it off for this record so the CNAME resolves directly.
• Only the link domain lives here. Your account console, the API and sign-in are never served on your domain; it answers only for your signup pages, tracking and unsubscribe pages.
• Removing it turns signup pages and tracking off again until you add a new one.