Custom domains

Your domain, our redirects.

Short links on a subdomain you own, and the same verified domain can carry your digital business cards. DNS takes two records. TLS, redirects, QR codes and analytics are ours to run.

Add a domain Free link checker

DNS records to add: 2DNS records to add
between checks until DNS lands: 5 minbetween checks until DNS lands
certificates you manage: 0certificates you manage

One CNAME record and one TXT record verifying a domain, which then serves TLS and redirects for links and cards

What you get

Two DNS records
A CNAME from your subdomain to our edge and a TXT record holding a token we show you once. Verification checks both and re-checks every five minutes until they propagate.
Certificates included
TLS is issued and renewed automatically once DNS verifies. No certificate files and no cron jobs.
Same links, your name
Aliases, UTM, expiry, passwords, visitor rules and QR all work on your domain. Analytics are per link and per domain.
Cards on your name too
One verified domain covers both halves, so the card you hand over carries your name and not ours, on the same certificate and the same dashboard.
Root domain behaviour
Choose what the bare domain shows. A redirect to your site, a bio page, or nothing at all. Unknown codes return a 404.
No lock-in
Export every link with its destination as CSV or over the API at any time. Removing a domain pauses its links and tells you how many were affected.

How it works

Add the domain
Open Domains in the dashboard and add the subdomain you want. We generate the verification token.
Add two records
One CNAME and one TXT at your DNS host. Most hosts propagate in minutes.
Verify
Click Verify Now or wait for the automatic check. The status turns active, certificates are issued, and new links and cards can use the domain.

One platform, two surfaces

A short link and a business card are the same object here.

Point a link at a card and you have a handshake you can print, say out loud or tap across. Both halves report into one dashboard on one plan.

You hand this over

GC.MW/riya

Ten characters. Short enough to say on a call, print on a badge or fit inside an SMS.

It opens this

CARDS.GC.MW/riya

Your digital business card, on its own host, with a contact file the phone can save.

One link, one card
A short link can resolve to your card, so the thing you hand over is 10 characters long.
One dashboard
Links, cards, domains and codes are managed from the same screen under the same login.
One analytics view
Clicks on a link and views on a card read from the same rollups, so a campaign is one number.
One plan, one key
A plan covers both halves and one API key creates either. No second bill and no second vendor.

The other half

Digital business cards

A card that opens in a second, saves to a phone, and never runs out.

Bio page and card

You are here

Short links

Ten characters, an alias you choose, and a click count that updates in seconds.

Branded links on GC.MW

A rising 14-day click chart with top country, referrer and device ranked beside it

Questions people ask

Can I use my root domain?

Use a subdomain such as links or go. A CNAME on the root conflicts with your email and website records. If you want a very short root domain, register one just for links.

What happens to links if I remove the domain?

They are paused, not deleted. Reconnect the domain or another one and re-enable them. We never silently move your links to another host.

Does the redirect run on your servers or mine?

Ours. Your DNS points the subdomain at us, we terminate TLS, look up the code and redirect. Nothing runs on your infrastructure.

Can the same domain serve my cards?

Yes. One verification covers short links and digital business cards, so both carry your name and both report into one analytics view.

Is there a limit on domains?

Plans include a number of custom domains and more can be added as an extra. The hard cap per workspace is 50.

The reason to put short links on your own domain is not that go.yourbrand.com/sale looks better than gc.mw/sale. It is that go.yourbrand.com/sale keeps working if you stop paying us.

That is an odd thing for us to lead with. It is also the only argument for custom domains that survives contact with a five-year print run, and every other benefit, recognition, click-through, filters that trust a domain they have seen before, sits downstream of it.

The two records

A CNAME. links in your zone, pointing at cname.gc.mw. That is the record that makes the redirect arrive at us.

A TXT. _gc-verify.links in your zone, containing gc-verify= and a token we generate once and show you once. That is the record that proves the domain is yours, so nobody else can attach links.yourbrand.com to their account and issue certificates against it.

Both are checked together. A CNAME without the TXT verifies nothing; a TXT without the CNAME resolves nothing. The checker re-runs every five minutes until both pass, then TLS is issued and renewed automatically. There are no certificate files to install and no cron job to forget.

A worked example

A retailer with eleven stores wanted one code on window vinyl per city.

They added go.brand.example as a CNAME to cname.gc.mw and the matching TXT. Verification passed in about four minutes. They then created eleven links, go.brand.example/mum, /blr, /del and so on, each with a geo rule underneath, so a scan from outside India lands on the international page instead of a store locator that means nothing to the visitor.

The window vinyl carries the same six-character path in every city. The analytics are per link and per domain, so the marketing lead reads eleven rows and one total without exporting anything.

Here is the part that made the decision easy for them: if they ever leave, the vinyl still says go.brand.example. They re-point one CNAME and the codes resolve somewhere else. Nothing in a shop window has to change. Compare that to eleven cities of vinyl that say a shortener's name.

What behaves differently on your domain

Everything a gc.mw link does works on your domain: aliases, UTM presets, expiry, click limits, passwords, per-country and per-device rules, QR at /code.qr and /code.svg, and the + stats page.

Two things are deliberately different.

Unknown codes 404 on your domain. They never fall through to a gc.mw page, because a visitor who typed your domain should not land on our brand.

The bare hostname is yours to point. Redirect it to your main site, serve a bio page from it, or leave it answering nothing. It is your name; we do not squat on it.

The reputation you are borrowing, and the one you are building

A new subdomain has no history. Email filters, corporate proxies and messaging apps treat it as unknown, which sometimes means a warning interstitial and occasionally means a silent block. This is the honest cost of moving off a shortener whose domain has been in allow-lists since 2008.

It gets better with traffic and with time, and it gets better faster if the domain is a subdomain of a site that already has a reputation. go.brand.example inherits some of brand.example; a freshly registered brandgo.example inherits nothing. Choose accordingly.

Check what a domain is actually doing

Link Checker

Open the full tool

Paste a hostname or a full link and you get the HTTP status, the certificate details, every hop in the redirect chain and a plain-language verdict. Two things worth looking for after you set a domain up: a chain that drops from https to http anywhere, and a certificate that does not cover the exact hostname people will type.

Three custom domains are included on Business and Team, more are an add-on, and the hard cap per workspace is 50. The branded links page covers what to do before you are ready for DNS, and the pricing page has the rest.