Serve a status page on your own domain

Add a custom domain so the public status page lives at status.yourdomain.com instead of something.use.observer. Observer provisions a TLS certificate automatically. The default subdomain keeps working as a fallback.

Prerequisites

• A Starter plan or higher. Free accounts cannot configure custom domains.
• A status page already created.
• Permission to add a CNAME record on the domain you want to use.

Pick a subdomain, not the root

CNAME records cannot be set on the root of a domain. Use status.yourdomain.com, not yourdomain.com. If your status page is the only thing on that domain, www.yourdomain.com is a reasonable choice.

Steps

1. •

   Add the custom domain in Observer

   In the console, open the status page and choose General. Under Custom domain, type the hostname you want to use (for example status.yourdomain.com) and click Add custom domain.

   Observer creates the record in dns_pending state and starts checking every 30 seconds for the CNAME you'll add next.

2. •

   Add the CNAME at your DNS provider

   Create a CNAME record with these values:

   Field	Value
   Type	CNAME
   Name	the subdomain (status if your domain is status.yourdomain.com)
   Value	cname.use.observer
   TTL	300 (or "automatic")

   The Observer UI shows provider-specific notes for Cloudflare, Route 53, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Vercel, and Netlify under the DNS provider dropdown.

3. •

   Verify

   Wait a minute or two for DNS to propagate, then click Check now in the custom domain card. The state pill walks through:

   • dns_pending — Observer hasn't seen the record yet.
   • dns_invalid — your CNAME exists but points somewhere else. Fix the record and click Check now.
   • dns_verified — DNS is right. Observer asks Let's Encrypt for a certificate.
   • cert_pending — certificate issuance in progress (usually under a minute, sometimes up to an hour if the issuer is rate-limited).
   • active — your domain serves the status page with a valid TLS cert.

After it's active

The page serves at your custom hostname. The original *.use.observer URL keeps working — feel free to redirect from it in your own infrastructure if you want a single canonical URL.

Observer renews the certificate automatically about 30 days before expiry. The UI shows the next expiry date inside the custom domain card.

Common failures

dns_pending for more than 30 minutes. Your DNS provider's TTL may be aggressive (1 hour or more). Wait it out, or temporarily lower the TTL.

dns_invalid with CNAME points to <something>.com. Your CNAME is pointing at the wrong target. The correct value is cname.use.observer.

cert_failed with "rate limited" in the message. Let's Encrypt limits per-domain issuance. The cron tick retries every five minutes; the rate limit resets within an hour. Clicking Check now faster than that won't help.

Cloudflare error 1014. Your CNAME is proxied. Switch the record to DNS-only (grey cloud) in the Cloudflare DNS panel.

Removing a custom domain

Click Remove custom domain in the General popover. The page stops serving on the custom hostname immediately and reverts to the default *.use.observer URL.