Review the terms related to setting up a custom domain in Salesforce.
Required Editions
| Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions. Domains created in Professional Edition must use the Salesforce CDN. |
- A Record—A record added to a domain’s DNS record that maps the domain to an IPv4 address. A DNS record can contain multiple A records.
- AAAA Record (quad A)—A record added to a domain’s DNS record that maps the domain to an IPv6 address. A domain’s DNS record can contain multiple AAAA records.
- Canonical Name (CNAME)—A record in DNS that points to a domain name, rather than an IP address. Often, when sites have subdomains such as blog.example.com or shop.example.com, those subdomains have CNAME records that point to a root domain (example.com). CNAME records follow changes made to the root domain. Use CNAME when you want to make one domain name the alias of another name.
- Certificate Authority (CA)—A trusted entity that stores, signs, and issues digital certificates to authenticate content sent from web servers. Sometimes referred to as a certification authority.
- Content Delivery Network (CDN)—A geographically distributed network of servers that stores cached versions of web assets to optimize page load times and site performance. For more information, see Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and Salesforce.
- Certificate—A file provided by a certificate authority (CA) that authenticates a
website’s identity and enables an encrypted connection. The file contains a public key and
other data that identifies the private key owner.
For custom domains, CDNs use single and shared certificates. Single certificates display only one brand, while shared certificates display multiple brands. The Salesforce CDN encourages single certificates because they’re more secure and branded. As of Winter ’21, all new sites using the Salesforce CDN use single certificates by default. To switch from a shared to a single certificate, edit your domain, and then select Single certificate for content delivery network (CDN).
- Common Name (CN)—Represents the host name protected by the SSL certificate. The CN serves as a host name identifier of a certificate.
- Custom URL—In Salesforce, a custom URL maps a full path URL to an Experience Cloud site or Salesforce Site in your org. At least one custom URL is required per domain. For more information, see Add a Custom URL.
- DNS Resolver—A server designed to receive DNS queries from web browsers and other applications. The resolver receives a host name and uses the DNS record for the host name to return an IP address.
- Domain Name—A company’s identity on the web. Domain names are human-friendly alphabetic versions of numeric IP addresses. In https://www.example.com, the domain name is example.com. When you set up a custom domain in Salesforce, unless you’re setting up a registrable domain, include the www. prefix in your domain name. See Point Your Custom Domain to Your Salesforce Org.
- Domain Name System (DNS)—A hierarchical and decentralized naming system for computers, services, or other resources connected to the internet or a private network.
- Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN)—All the parts of a domain required to look up this authority by name unambiguously using the internet’s DNS system. For example, www.example.com.
- HTTP, HTTPS—Hypertext Transfer Protocol, a communications protocol used to connect to web servers on the internet or on a local network (intranet). Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a protocol that secures communication and data transfer between a user’s web browser and a website.
- HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)—A response header that declares that others access the website using HTTPS only, and instructs requesters to convert any future attempts to access the website using HTTP automatically to HTTPS. This highly recommended option helps to protect against man-in-the-middle attacks. For more information, see Enable HSTS Preloading on a Custom Domain.
- IP Address—A unique string of characters that identifies a device using the Internet Protocol to communicate over the internet or a local network. IP addresses come in two formats: IPv4 addresses such as 255.255.255.0, which contain only numbers, or IPv6 addresses such as 2001:0db8:95a3:0000:0000:8c2f:0730:9155, which can contain numbers and letters.
- Naked Domain—See registrable domain.
- Path—In a URL, the path refers to the exact location of a page, post, file, or other asset. It can be analogous to the underlying file structure of the website. The path resides after the host name and is separated by “/”.
- Proxy Server—A proxy server is a dedicated computer or a software system that acts as an intermediary between an endpoint device, such as a computer, and another server. When a user or client makes a request—for example, by visiting a URL or loading an image— the proxy routes the request. The proxy server can exist in the same machine as a firewall server or it can exist on a separate server, which forwards requests.
- Public-Private Key Pair—Two related encryption keys used in public-key cryptography. When data is encrypted with the public key, that data can be decrypted only with the matching private key. The owner of the key pair makes the public key available to anyone but keeps the private key secret. CA-signed HTTPS certificates use a public-private key pair to establish the security of data transmission.
- Registrable Domain—Your unique domain name that you obtained from a domain registrar. The registrable domain of your site is likely your homepage and the highest page in your site hierarchy. Subdomains or pages can be built off the registrable domain, but each page’s URL must include the registrable domain to be a part of your site. An example of a registrable domain name is example.com.
- Root Domain—See registrable domain.
- Subdomain—A division of your main domain, often used for a different content type or for a
separate business unit. For example, https://shop.example.com points to your
site’s store, while blog.example.com points to the site’s blog. A subdomain is
considered a standalone site. It’s related to, but distinct from, the main domain.
Note www is a subdomain that identifies your site as part of the World Wide Web. - Subdirectory or Subfolder—Subfolders are a further division of your domain to organize and navigate to different sections of your website. For instance: shop.example.com/newproducts or blog.example.com/faq.
- Top-Level Domain (TLD)—The level of the domain hierarchy that identifies sites based on their commonality of geography (.ca, .au) or purpose (.com, .org).
- Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)—A string that identifies a resource on the internet or an intranet. There are two types of URIs: URLs and URNs.
- Uniform Resource Locator (URL)—
A unique identifier that specifies the location of a resource on the internet or an intranet.
- Uniform Resource Name (URN)—A persistent and location-independent identifier that specifies the name of a resource on the internet or an intranet.
- Web Application Firewall (WAF)—A web application firewall protects web applications for potential attacks, such as cross-site scripting (XSS), injection attacks, sensitive data exposure, and security misconfigurations. It analyzes each HTTP or HTTPS request at the application layer.