Fathom Analytics

How to create a custom domain to bypass ad-blockers

While we believe that ad-blocking browser extensions are great, useful and help people hide their personal data from big tech companies, we also believe that since our own product is privacy-focused, our customers should be able to stop their tracking script from being blocked by ad-blockers.

To bypass ad-blocking extensions, you need to create a custom domain entry in your settings.

  1. Log into your account, and navigate to Settings (in the footer of your dashboard, then Domains (on the left).
  2. Scroll to “Add a new custom domain” and enter the URL for your domain. For example, if your website was https://hilariousplatypus.com, you’d enter hilariousplatypus.com into the form field, then press Start process. You cannot enter a subdomain like stats.hilariousplatypus.com as we generate the subdomain for you automatically.
  3. Then, you’ll see a DNS record that you’ll need to create at your domain registrar (the place you registered your domain with, or the place that hosts your DNS) in order for the custom subdomain to point to Fathom’s tracker. For example: Record moose, Value starman.fathomdns.com.
  4. You will need to log into your domain registrar and create this DNS record. If you use CloudFlare, ensure you’ve disabled DNS caching (the orange cloud).
  5. Once that’s done, click I have created these DNS records.
  6. We then monitor your subdomain in the background and, once it's ready to go, we'll send you an email

How to use my custom domain with my tracking code?

You can use any custom domain you create with any site you have on Fathom. Just go to Sites and click on the tracking code. From there, you’ll see all your active custom domains in a dropdown called Select custom domain. Choose the one you want to use, then copy/paste the new embed code into your site.

That’s it! You’re ready to use your new custom domain and tracker filename on your websites. This will ensure that ad blockers don’t block the Fathom tracking script (as they won’t even be able to tell it’s a tracking script). And, if you ever find that ad blockers are blocking your tracking file, simply delete your current custom domain, create a new one, and use that instead.

How to add a custom CNAME on popular domain registrars

Every domain registrar is different in terms of editing DNS records, but here are links to a few popular ones:

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