DNS Masking

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About DNS Masking

By default, all of your KickApps-powered pages have URLs that start with http://affiliate.kickapps.com. DNS masking lets you customize this portion of the URL so that the pages appear to be located within your own domain name (even though they’re still hosted by us.)

This is how a default KickApps URL might appear in your browser’s address bar:

http://affiliate.kickapps.com/_belle-chase/video/609814/22430.html

With DNS Masking activated, you’ll be able to make the above URL look like either of the below examples, where yoursite.com is your own domain name:

Example 1 - With a Subdomain
http://community.yoursite.com/_belle-chase/video/609814/22430.html
Example 2 - No Subdomain
http://yoursite.com/_belle-chase/video/609814/22430.html

Implementing DNS Masking - General Instructions

To activate DNS masking for your KickApps community,

  1. Buy a domain from a registrar like GoDaddy or Yahoo.
  2. Decide whether to use a subdomain.
    If you're integrating KickApps into an existing website that already lives on its own domain (e.g., yoursite.com), your best bet is to create a subdomain of this domain (e.g., community.yoursite.com) for your KickApps-powered pages (see Example 1, above). On the other hand, if you’re building a site that is comprised exclusively of KickApps-powered pages, it may make sense to use no subdomain (as in Example 2). Note that if you choose the latter, every page that appears under that domain name will have to be hosted by KickApps, which means that you won't be able to add pages to your site that aren't generated by our platform (like a custom homepage). If you're not sure what to do, use a subdomain.
  3. Create a CNAME record that points your domain or subdomain to affiliate.kickapps.com.
    A CNAME record is a server setting that sets things up so that requests made to one domain are actually fulfilled by another domain. In this case, you need to CNAME community.yoursite.com (or whatever you picked in Step 2) to affiliate.kickapps.com. Every registrar has a different process to set up a CNAME record, so return to the site in which you bought your domain in Step 1 and look for the administrative control panel. In Yahoo, you can configure CNAME records under Advanced DNS Settings in DNS Control Panel. In GoDaddy, it's called Total DNS Control (for detailed instructions, see the next section, #Implementing DNS Masking on GoDaddy. For help making this setting on other popular DNS hosts, check out this article from Google. You can follow these directions to make your setting; just make sure to CNAME to affiliate.kickapps.com, not ghs.google.com. If you still can't figure it out, please contact your registrar directly.
  4. Log into the Affiliate Center.
  5. Browse to Configure > Settings > Advanced > DNS Masking.
  6. Enter the domain or subdomain that you picked in Step 2. This should be something like yoursite.com or community.yoursite.com.
  7. Click the "Confirm CNAME" button.
  8. Enter the URL of the page that you'd like to be displayed when users browse directly to the domain or subdomain that you entered in Step 7. Note: this URL cannot be the same as the one you entered in Step 7.
  9. Click the "Activate DNS Masking" button.

It may take several minutes for these settings to make their way to all of the servers involved. Once they do, the URLs of your KickApps-powered pages will begin with your chosen domain or subdomain. If you've created any links to your KickApps-powered pages with the default affiliate.kickapps.com URLs, make sure to change these to your new masked URLs.

Please note: it is possible to lock yourself out of the Affiliate Center by misconfiguring your CNAME. If this has happened to you, see the #Re-gaining access to the Affiliate Center after misconfiguring your CNAME section below for directions on how to get back in.

Implementing DNS Masking on GoDaddy

To activate DNS masking for your domain or subdomain on GoDaddy,

  1. Log in to your GoDaddy account. If you purchased your domain from the KickApps Domain Store, log in at http://domains.kickapps.com. If not, head over to www.godaddy.com.
  2. Hover over the "Domains" tab and click "My Domains".
  3. Click on the domain that you wish to use for your KickApps community.
  4. In the Domain Control Center, click "Total DNS Control and MX Records" (in the middle): DNS Masking on GoDaddy 
  5. In the page that comes up, click "Add New CNAME Record": DNS Masking on GoDaddy
  6. On the next page, enter affiliate.kickapps.com in the Host Name field. Enter the subdomain that you're going to use to mask your community with in the Alias Name field. So, for instance, if you want to mask your community to community.mysite.com, enter community in the Alias Name field as depicted in the screenshot below. Or, if you want to mask your community directly to your domain (e.g. "mysite.com"), enter "www" here. Please note that if you decide to mask your community directly to your domain, you will not be able to host other pages on that domain; every page served from that domain will be a KickApps hosted page. DNS Masking on GoDaddy
  7. Click OK.
  8. Log into the Affiliate Center.
  9. Browse to Configure > Settings > Advanced > DNS Masking.
  10. Enter the domain or subdomain that you used in Step 6 above. This should be something like yoursite.com or community.yoursite.com.
  11. Click the "Confirm CNAME" button.
  12. Enter the URL of the page that you'd like to be displayed when users browse directly to the domain or subdomain that you entered in Step 7. Note: this URL cannot be the same as the one you entered in the previous step.
  13. Click the "Save Settings; button.

It may take several minutes for these settings to make their way to all of the servers involved. Once they do, the URLs of your KickApps-powered pages will begin with your chosen domain or subdomain. If you've created any links to your KickApps-powered pages with the default affiliate.kickapps.com URLs, make sure to change these to your new masked URLs.

Please note: it is possible to lock yourself out of the Affiliate Center by misconfiguring your CNAME. If this has happened to you, see the #Re-gaining access to the Affiliate Center after misconfiguring your CNAME section below for directions on how to get back in.

DNS Masking Video Tutorial

Re-gaining access to the Affiliate Center after misconfiguring your CNAME

So you've been trying to implement DNS Masking, and now you can't log into your Affiliate Center account. The problem is that you haven't CNAMEd your domain or subdomain to affiliate.kickapps.com correctly. While the best thing to do is to go back to your domain or subdomain provider and configure the CNAME correctly, you may have decided not to CNAME your site, have a domain that's expired, or be experiencing another situation that is preventing you from accessing your domain. The solution is to edit the host file on your computer to temporarily mimic your domain and let you get back into the Affiliate Center where you can regain access to your CNAME settings from the KickApps side.

To edit your hosts file on a Windows computer,

  1. Go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in Explorer.
  2. Open "hosts" in Notepad or another text editor.
  3. If you attempted to CNAME your domain, enter the following line at the bottom of this file, replacing 
    yourdomain
    with the name of the domain that you attempted to CNAME: 
    66.77.79.20		yourdomain.com
  4. If you attempted to CNAME your subdomain, enter the following line at the bottom of this file, replacing 
    yoursubdomain
    and 
    yourdomain
    with the appropriate values from the subdomain that you attempted to CNAME: 
    66.77.79.20		yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com

    If you're not sure whether you tried to CNAME your domain or your subdomain, enter both lines of code.

  5. Save the "hosts" file.
  6. Clear your browser's cache and restart your browser.
  7. Browse to the domain or subdomain that you attempted to CNAME. You will be redirected to your site.
  8. Login to your site with your affiliate webmaster username and password.
  9. Browse to Configure > Advanced > Activate DNS Masking. Remove the contents of the CNAME field and click Save.
  10. Go through steps (1) and (2) to open your "hosts" file again. Remove anything that you added to it and save your changes.
  11. Clear your cache and restart your browser.

To edit your hosts file on a Mac, see this article on Apple.com.

You should now be able to access the Affiliate Center. Your next step should be to return to your domain registrar and CNAME your domain or subdomain to affiliate.kickapps.com. Keep in mind that a CNAME is a different setting than a redirect. Consult with your domain registrar if you need assistance. Also keep in mind that it can take up to 48 hours for a CNAME to propogate around the Internet. Review the #How to activate DNS Masking section above before embarking on the process again.

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