Domains
What a domain is for here
A domain is the address your customers type, the address on your invoices, and
the half of your email address after the @. On BusinessDash it does three
jobs at once:
| It carries | So that |
|---|---|
| Your published website | Visitors reach your pages at your own address, not a platform URL |
| Your public form links | A quote request you send out looks like it came from you |
| Your sending email | Mail from your business authenticates as your business — see Email |
The third one is the reason domains and email are documented together. A domain you own is what lets you send mail that receivers can verify, and nothing else substitutes for it.
Every site starts with a free address
When you create a site, BusinessDash gives it a hostname on the platform
domain — yoursite.businessdash.us — and marks it verified and primary
immediately. There is no DNS to add, because the platform already owns that
domain.
That address is a real, working public URL. You can publish to it, send people to it, and run a business on it. What it cannot do is look like yours, or carry your email.
The platform subdomain is free and does not expire. Connecting your own hostname is a plan feature, because serving your traffic from your address is what turns your visitors into the platform's hosting bill.
Two ways to get your own address
| What you do | What you have to maintain | |
|---|---|---|
| Connect a domain you own | Add the hostname, publish a TXT record to prove it is yours, then point traffic at the platform | Your DNS, at your registrar |
| Buy one through BusinessDash | Search, check out, and the email records are written for you | Nothing — DNS is editable from your dashboard |
Both end in the same place: a verified hostname serving your published site. The difference is who holds the zone file.
Buying a domain through BusinessDash is in a limited beta and is not open to every workspace yet. Connecting a domain you already own is open to any plan that includes custom domains.
Where this lives in the dashboard
Settings → Domain & DNS holds both halves: the connection panel for hostnames on your sites, and the purchase panel with search, your registered domains, and their DNS records.
Keep reading
- Connecting a domain you own — the TXT record, the routing record, verification states, and what detaching does.
- Buying a domain — search and pricing, what arrives configured, renewals, and transferring in or out.
- How a domain serves your site — what a visitor's request actually does, and every page they can land on instead.
- Reserved names — the subdomains the platform keeps, and why.