Using our naked domain

[Sheamus]

We created our website using Hubspot's Landing pages feature before the CMS Hub existed. Our SEO is hurting because we can not use our naked domain. Our current setup is as follows:

• Our landing pages are on get.ourproductname.net
• DNS redirect of the www cname to get.ourproductname.net
• our actual SaaS application lives on the naked domain, ourproductname.net
• We also own getourproductname.com
• We are on the the Professional tier of Hubspot Marketing.

I think the ultimate solution is to

• Move our application to app.ourproductname.net
• have the landing pages on ourproductname.net (but this is not possible)
• or do a DNS redirect of the naked domain to get.ourproductname.net. (I don't think this is possible either.)

This issue is really making us rethinking using Hubspot Marketing. How are other companies handling this? Any suggestions for us? 

[danmoyle]

Hi @Sheamus. Some feedback from my colleague (my boss technically): I believe that an enterprise sku for marketing and/or CMS would allow for "root domain / apex" records. We have that for us. [ie: impulsecreative.com  vs www.impulsecreative.com]

With CMS Pro you can "redirect a naked domain" to www

Do you have a customer success manager or account manager type person you work with? I'd ask them to confirm the specifics. Hope that helps! 

[TiphaineCuisset]

Hi @Sheamus 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

Also want to tag some of our experts in there to see what they think - @mike-ward @danmoyle @Daniel_Bleich do you have any suggestion for @Sheamus on this? 

Thank you!

Best

Tiphaine

[Sheamus]

So I have done some more research on this, as I try to formulate a plan. I thought I would share my findings:

• A move to the affordable HS CMS basic would mean that we would lose a lot of the features we are using with Marketing Pro's Landing Pages (LPs) such as: a/b testing, SEO tools, contact attribution, smart content, etc.
• HS CMS Pros is $5000/year and provides the same features that we already have in LPs.
• HS CMS Pro additionally would give us the ability to host our site on the www domain (though not the naked domain), and also automatically adds pages to the sitemap (it currently takes a couple seconds to add a new LP to the sitemap manually).

[mike-ward]

Hi @Sheamus,

I think you've identified the way to go for this, which is CMS Hub Pro, which just gives you more domain control (and the same suite of tools that you can use on LPs). I think you can use both the naked (apex) domain and the www. though just by using a redirect domain.

Then you'd have something like:

• app.ourproductname.net <== nothing to do with HS
• get.ourproductname.net <== any actual marketing LPs (but I think you can have them on the main domain too in sub-folders... but I may be wrong about that, never tried)
• (www.)ourproductname.net <== your main marketing site (with a redirect from the apex domain so you get both www and non-www)

The extra $$ for CMS does feel quite steep when you're coming from already having built your site in Landing Pages - you're really paying the extra for a handful of more flexible domain controls (plus a few other bits and pieces I'm sure). I think that's the way to go though. But you'd probably pay a bit less than that by making a bundle.

I'd reach out to your AM and explain the situation and see what kind of price they can do you for a bundle... the off-the-shelf bundle price should add about $360 a month for CMS Hub Pro, but I bet you can get them down a bit as an existing loyal customer - especially as you did this before CMS Hub even existed!  

Cheers,

Mike

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