Your own domain

Every server's website lives at <subdomain>.dzbot.de. With dzbot Pro you can connect a domain you already own, such as play.yourserver.com or yourserver.com. Players then land on your address, and every dzbot address of the server redirects there, links included.

Your own domain costs €1 a month per domain, as its own small subscription next to your Pro plan. You cancel it on its own whenever you like.

Where

Settings → Server, card Addresses. It lists every address of the server:

• Your own domain, with how far its setup is.
• Your dzbot address (<subdomain>.dzbot.de). It is free and always stays. You change it by clicking its row.
• Former addresses that still redirect.

Whoever may change the subdomain setting manages the addresses. Activating, which means paying, needs the right to manage your organization's billing as well.

Connecting a domain

1. Click Own domain and enter the full address, e.g. play.yourserver.com. The domain must already be yours; dzbot does not sell domains.

2. Set the DNS record. Where you manage your domain, add:

   Type	Name	Target
   CNAME	play (the part before your domain)	custom.dzbot.de

   dzbot looks for it on its own every few minutes; Check now looks right away. Changes to DNS can take a while to spread, usually minutes, sometimes an hour.

3. Activate. Once the record is found, Activate domain · €1 / month takes you to the payment.

4. Go live. After paying, the certificate for your domain is issued, which usually takes under a minute. From then on your domain is the server's main address.

You get a Discord message when the domain is live.

A domain without anything in front (yourserver.com)

The root of a domain cannot carry a normal CNAME record. It only works if your DNS provider can point the root at another name. Providers call this CNAME flattening, ALIAS or ANAME.

• Can do it: Cloudflare (free, any plan), Bunny DNS, DNSimple, easyDNS, DNS Made Easy, Gandi, INWX.
• Cannot: Hetzner, and many other hosting providers. Look for ALIAS, ANAME or CNAME flattening in your provider's help pages.

If yours cannot, you have two ways out:

• Use a subdomain like play.yourserver.com or www.yourserver.com, and set up a web redirect from yourserver.com to it at your provider. Nearly every provider offers such a redirect.
• Move only the DNS of your domain to Cloudflare for free. The domain itself stays with your provider.

If your domain is on Cloudflare

Set the record to DNS only (grey cloud), not Proxied (orange cloud). Otherwise dzbot does not find the record.

What redirects where

Your server has one main address: your own domain while it is live, otherwise the dzbot address. Every other address of the server sends visitors there permanently, with the page they asked for:

• your dzbot address, as long as your own domain is live,
• the last two former addresses, e.g. a subdomain you renamed, or a domain you used before.

As long as a former address is on that list, no other server can take it. Once a newer address pushes it out, it is free again. You can also release it early with the bin icon in its row.

Logging in works on your own domain too. The login runs through dzbot.de for a moment and brings you straight back. That login only covers this server: other servers and the apps connected to your account (such as an AI app) stay on dzbot.de.

Cancelling, failed payments and Free

• Cancel: open the domain and click Cancel domain. It keeps running until the paid month ends, then the dzbot address is the main address again.
• Failed payment: Stripe tries again over a few days and the domain keeps running in the meantime. If the payment does not go through, the domain is switched off.
• Back on dzbot Free: an own domain needs Pro. When the server falls back to Free, the domain is switched off and its subscription ends with the paid month.

When a domain is switched off, it redirects to the dzbot address for another 30 days, so shared links do not break at once.

Free domains

Sometimes your organization gets free own domains from us — as a gift, in a campaign, or for a set time. You see it when you activate a domain: the button then reads Activate for free and tells you how many free domains are left. A free domain runs without a subscription and shows Free in the list of addresses.

• With an end date ("free until …"): 14 and 3 days before, we remind you by Discord DM. Open the domain and click Keep domain to book it for afterwards — you only pay from that day on, 1 € a month. If you do nothing, the domain is switched off on that day like a cancelled one. If your organization has another free domain left by then, the domain simply moves there.
• A domain you already pay for moves onto a free place as soon as one is granted. Its subscription then ends with the month you already paid; there is no refund for that month.
• Removing a free domain switches it off right away, and its free place goes back to your organization.