Custom Subdomain Blog Hosting

Use a custom subdomain when you want EarlySEO to host your blog while your main website stays exactly where it is. Your platform never changes — you add one DNS record and link to the blog from your navigation.

Main website: example.com     (unchanged, on your current platform)
EarlySEO blog: blog.example.com

This is the recommended setup for any platform that has no publishing API, and it also works alongside platforms that do.

When to use this setup

• Your website builder or CMS has no blog publishing API — Squarespace, Carrd, Webflow without CMS seats, custom static sites
• You want EarlySEO to host and serve the generated articles, including SSL
• You want the blog on your own domain for SEO, rather than a third-party domain
• You do not want to touch your root domain or www records

If your platform has a direct integration — WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, Ghost, Wix, Notion — publishing into that CMS is usually the better fit. Use a custom subdomain when it is not.

Prerequisites

• A domain you control, such as example.com
• Access to the DNS settings for that domain
• An EarlySEO account with a site created

The subdomain is always blog.

EarlySEO serves hosted blogs at blog. plus your root domain. You enter example.com and the blog is created at blog.example.com.

Other prefixes such as articles. or insights. are not supported. Entering articles.example.com produces blog.articles.example.com, which is almost certainly not what you want.

This integration is subdomain-only. Serving the blog from a path such as example.com/blog requires a reverse proxy you run yourself — see Cloudflare Worker Setup if that is what you need.

If you use Cloudflare, read this first

This is the single most common reason a blog subdomain fails to come up.

Cloudflare's proxy (the orange cloud) must be off for the blog record, at least until the certificate is issued. With it on:

• blog.example.com resolves to Cloudflare's own addresses instead of EarlySEO
• EarlySEO never gets to issue an SSL certificate for your subdomain
• Cloudflare then cannot reach us over HTTPS and shows SSL handshake failed (error 525)

Set the record to DNS only (grey cloud). Once the blog loads you may turn the proxy back on, but only with SSL/TLS mode set to Full (strict) — anything lower brings the error straight back.

EarlySEO detects this automatically. If it happens, your integration in Integrations will say Cloudflare proxy is turned on and list the steps to fix it.

Setup

1. Create the integration

1. Go to Integrations in your EarlySEO dashboard
2. Click Add Integration and select Custom Subdomain
3. Fill in the form:
   • Your Domain: your root domain, for example example.com — not blog.example.com
   • Publishing Behavior: choose Publish Immediately or Save as Draft
4. Click Create Integration

EarlySEO registers blog.example.com with our hosting provider at this point and shows you the DNS record to add.

On Squarespace? Use the Squarespace integration instead. It runs this same hosted blog and adds Squarespace-specific navigation steps.

2. Add the DNS record

In your DNS provider, add a CNAME record:

Type:  CNAME
Name:  blog
Value: blog.earlyseo.com
TTL:   Automatic (or 300)

Only add the subdomain record. Do not edit the records for example.com or www.example.com — your main website keeps resolving exactly as it does today.

The Name field takes only the subdomain part. Most providers append the root domain for you:

If your provider rejects a bare blog, enter the fully qualified blog.example.com instead.

Cloudflare users: set the record to DNS only (grey cloud) until the certificate is issued. Leaving the orange proxy cloud on during provisioning causes SSL error 525. You can enable proxying afterwards with SSL mode set to Full (strict).

3. Wait for DNS and SSL

DNS usually propagates within a few minutes but can take up to an hour. SSL is issued automatically once the record resolves to EarlySEO — you do not need to upload or configure a certificate.

Verifying the setup

1. Confirm DNS resolves

From a terminal:

dig +short CNAME blog.example.com

On Windows:

nslookup -type=CNAME blog.example.com

Expected result:

blog.earlyseo.com

If you see a different target, or nothing at all, the record has not propagated yet or was saved under the wrong name.

2. Check the verification endpoint

Open this URL in a browser:

https://blog.example.com/.well-known/earlyseo-verify

Expected result: a plain text verification token.

A 404 means the subdomain is not reaching the EarlySEO hosted-blog app yet. A certificate warning means SSL is still being issued.

3. Revalidate in EarlySEO

Return to Integrations and click Validate on the integration. Once the verification endpoint returns the expected token, the status changes to Connected. Validating also retries domain registration if it did not complete the first time.

4. Open a published article

Publish an article from EarlySEO and open its URL:

https://blog.example.com/my-article-slug

The article should render on your subdomain, styled to match your brand color. See Article Theming to customize the appearance.

Troubleshooting

Subdomain does not resolve

• Confirm a CNAME record exists for blog
• Confirm the name field holds only blog, not blog.example.com, unless your provider requires the full name
• Confirm the target is exactly blog.earlyseo.com, with no trailing slash or https://
• Wait for propagation and check again with dig

Verification endpoint returns 404

• Confirm DNS resolves to blog.earlyseo.com
• Click Validate on the integration to retry domain registration
• Wait for provisioning to finish, then retry

SSL handshake failed / Cloudflare error 525 — the most common failure

• The Cloudflare proxy is on. Set the blog record to DNS only (grey cloud).
• Leave the value as blog.earlyseo.com — the target is already correct. Do not replace it with the address your host's dashboard suggests.
• Wait a minute, then click Revalidate on the integration.
• Re-enable the proxy only after the blog loads, with SSL/TLS mode Full (strict).

Cloudflare error 521, 522, or 523

• Cloudflare cannot reach our servers. Same fix: set the record to DNS only and revalidate.

SSL or certificate warning (no error code)

• Confirm the CNAME target is blog.earlyseo.com
• The certificate is probably still being issued. Wait a few minutes and reload.

Main website changed unexpectedly

• Only the blog record should have been touched. Restore your root and www records to their previous values — the hosted blog never requires changing them

Articles are not appearing

• Confirm the integration shows Connected
• Confirm the article is published rather than saved as a draft
• Open the article URL directly from EarlySEO rather than through your navigation link

Linking the blog from your site

EarlySEO does not modify your main website. Add a navigation link yourself, pointing to:

https://blog.example.com

Use a label such as Blog, Articles, or Insights. Every platform supports external navigation links — for Squarespace specifically, see the Squarespace guide.

Related

• Squarespace integration — the same hosted blog, with Squarespace-specific navigation steps
• Article Theming — brand colors and dark mode on hosted articles
• All integrations — direct CMS publishing options