Premium setup

Serve your images from
your own domain

Premium serves your images from img.yourdomain.com instead of our shared domain, with no corner note. It takes one DNS record, and this page shows you exactly what to enter — whoever your domain is with.

The short version

One CNAME record

If you already know your way around a DNS panel, this is the whole job.

TypeCNAME
Name / Hostimg — most panels add your domain automatically
Value / Targetimg.youcansecureit.com
TTLDefault, or 3600

Then enter img.yourdomain.com in Settings → Image Relay in WordPress. The relay verifies the record, provisions the hostname and issues an SSL certificate — usually live within about fifteen minutes.

The hostname has to be img. on your own domain. That is a deliberate anti-abuse rule — it keeps every image served on a custom domain traceable to the site that registered it. images.yourdomain.com or cdn.yourdomain.com will be refused.

What the fields mean

Every panel calls them something different

There are only three values, however they are labelled.

Type

CNAME, always. Not A, not ALIAS, and not URL or web forwarding — forwarding sends visitors to another page rather than answering with an address.

Name, Host, Hostname or Subdomain

Enter img. Nearly every panel appends your domain for you. A few — cPanel's Zone Editor in particular — want the full img.yourdomain.com.

Value, Target, Points to, Content or Answer

Enter img.youcansecureit.com. Some zone editors require a trailing dot: img.youcansecureit.com. The per-registrar pages below say which.

Before you start

Make sure you are editing the right DNS

This catches more people than any other step. Your domain's DNS is wherever its nameservers point, which is not always the company you bought it from. If you moved a site to Cloudflare, or your host runs your DNS, editing records at the registrar changes nothing.

dig +short NS yourdomain.com

Whatever that returns is who runs your DNS — make the change there. On Windows, use nslookup -type=NS yourdomain.com.

Step 3

Check the record is live

DNS changes are usually visible within a few minutes, though registrars are allowed to take up to 24–48 hours. You do not have to wait to find out — ask the internet directly:

dig +short img.yourdomain.com

On Windows, nslookup img.yourdomain.com does the same job. You are looking for img.youcansecureit.com in the answer. Until the record has propagated you will get nothing back, which is normal and not an error. The relay re-checks every 24 hours, so a slow registrar sorts itself out.

Step 4

Tell the plugin

In WordPress, open Settings → Image Relay and enter img.yourdomain.com. The relay checks the DNS itself, provisions the hostname and issues an SSL certificate for it — usually live within about fifteen minutes.

From then on your images are served from your own hostname, with no corner note. If the DNS record ever disappears the relay notices within 24 hours and quietly falls back to the shared domain, so your images never break.

If it does not work

The four things that actually go wrong

A record already exists for img

A leftover A, AAAA or CNAME record on the same name wins over the one you just added. Delete the old row rather than adding a second.

The full hostname was typed into the name box

Most panels append your domain automatically, so img.yourdomain.com becomes img.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com. If dig shows a doubled domain, that is the cause.

The domain is not using these nameservers

Editing DNS at your registrar does nothing if the nameservers point somewhere else — a host, or Cloudflare. Check with dig +short NS yourdomain.com and edit wherever that points.

It is proxied rather than resolved

Cloudflare's orange cloud, and similar “web forwarding” options elsewhere, hide the real DNS answer. The relay cannot verify the hostname and the certificate will not issue. Set the record to DNS only.

Step by step

Instructions for your registrar

The record is identical everywhere. These pages just save you hunting for the DNS editor.

UK registrars and hosts

International registrars and hosts

Not listed? The record at the top of this page is all you need — every DNS panel can add a CNAME, and the labels above cover almost all of the wording you will meet.

Not on Premium yet?

Your own image domain is a Premium feature. There is a three-day trial for $5 if you want to see it working before committing to a year.

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