Adding Your Branded Domain to BlueSky Social App

BlueSky is a trending social media network from Twitter’s former owner based on the AT Protocol, a decentralized open network that allows social apps to communicate together. As a business, you will want to own your branded domain on the network because, at the end of the day, if you’re not talking about your business, then someone else is and likely without your authorization. Bluesky allows you to add your own personalized branded or business domain usernames.

Examples you can find us at https://bsky.app/profile/making8.com and https://bsky.app/profile/adam.making8.com, where you can see personal examples of verifying brands.

It’s worth noting that it’s important to protect your brand domains. People are registering Bluesky domain variations to look authentic, which could later be used in phishing attacks. We expect to see branded attacks with domain variations shortly. I’ve shared this with industry colleagues and Bluesky so they can repair it.

How to Add Your Domain to BlueSky as a Username

First, you’ll want to Register at BlueSky

We did not elect to host our own account, but that may be a consideration at some point.

Create Your Handle

Second, create a Bluesky Handle (Username), which should ideally be your brand or professional name, depending on the brand you’re trying to control.

Complete the Prompts to Finish Registration

Follow the Bluesky prompts from the image selection for your bio and the security captcha puzzle to complete the basic registration.

To Add Domain to BlueSky Follow Next Steps

• Click the “Settings” gear on the Bluesky navigation on the left above “New Post.”
• In “Settings,” scroll down and click the @ symbol that says “Change Handle.”
• In “Change Hand,” click on “I have my own domain”
  
  

• Inside “Change Handle,” put your domain into the “Enter the domain you want to use” next to the @ form field.
• In the field that says “Add the following DNS record to your Domain:” you’ll want to copy the records to your domain registrar like Godaddy, NameCheap, or Enom.

Adding Your Bluesky DNS Record to your Domain Registrar

1. Login to your domain registrar like Godaddy, Enom etc and click on your domain.
2. Click “DNS (Godaddy) or “Edit DNS” once you’re inside your domain.
3. Click “Add New Record” once inside “DNS Records.”
4. In DNS, for the drop-down under “Type,” select “TXT,” which is a text record.
5. In the Name field, enter “_atproto” as it shows on your DNS record on Bluesky, as shown in the image above.
6. Enter in your “Value,” field as the field shows on your DNS record on Bluesky as shown in the “I have my own domain area” found after logging into Bluesky Settings and scrolling down to “Change Handle” and “I have my own domain.” Click “Save” to confirm your text record.
7. Click “Verify DNS Record” on Bluesky. Depending on your domain registrar, this may take a few minutes or even hours. Godaddy took about 30 seconds for us.
8. Congratulations, you’ve got your branded domain on Bluesky!

Adding a Secondary Subdomain User to Bluesky

Adding a secondary user to Bluesky is quite simple with a straightforward tweak to the above.

1. Log in to your alternate handle Bluesky app account or create one under “Settings” and “Add an account” so you can add a subdomain username like “adam.making8.com,” which validates your users you’re the real deal vs the stupidly paid checkmarks on Twitter. Remember, you can change the name of an existing account without having to create another for your subdomain.
2. Go into Bluesky “Settings,” and click “Change Handle” then “I have my own domain”
3. Copy the “Value,” field under the DNS panel tab like shown previously where it shows the did=did:plc: and all the original values in it assigned to you.
4. Login to your Domain registrar like Godaddy, or Enoms. Select your domain, and click on “DNS” or “Edit DNS.”
5. Once you’re inside DNS you’ll want to click “Add Record” or “Add DNS” record which could vary in name depending on your domain registrar.
6. Once you’ve clicked “Add Record,” in the dropdown under “Type,” select “TXT” for text record. You should now see a text editor field in front of you.
7. In the text editor field following type is usually “Name” which is where you add your custom branded name which can be anything you want! So if you wanted the Bluesky handle “@ellaine.npr.org” you’d enter in “_atproto.ellaine” of which an example of what we did will be in an image below.
8. In the value field enter in the “did=did:plc:” with all the trailing characters from your account handle at Bluesky you want to add the subdomain to. Now once all the text record fields are filled click save!
9. On Bluesky in your “I have my own domain” area in your alternate account you copied your record from click “Verify DNS Record.” Congratulations you now have a subdomain account handle verified on Bluesky to differentiate you from all the fakers!

Adding a Subdomain and Redirect to Your Website

If you’re a perfectionist like me, then you’ll probably want to create the subdomain on your site because adam.making8.com still had to be created, and if anyone typed that into their browser, it would have resolved to a dead page. I had to create a subdomain and redirect it to where I wanted. I recommend a biography page that has your biography and schema code to reinforce to search engines that your social media profile is related.

1. At your web host or domain registrar, depending on who is hosting your DNS records, you’ll want to make sure the DNS record is created for when people type that subdomain like adam.making8.com . We had to create an “A Record” under DNS and “Add Record” at Godaddy.
2. In the A-Record fields enter in your subdomain and IP to your web host unless the DNS is managed at the web host in which case just add in your subdomain you want to create. In our case we had to create the A-record at Godaddy like in step 1 and then also created a subdomain at the host which has to also be added there. Depending on the host the A-record may take some time to propagate and as such the web host might not be able to immediately create the record. At any host type into search “How to Add a Subdomain.”
3. After the subdomain is created at the web host and domain registrar (sometimes both at the same place) create an SSL certificate.
4. Once the SSL certificate is created click to enforce it with a wildcard so that all canonical variants are directed properly.
5. 301 redirect the subdomain to the proper page of your choosing which if it’s your name should be your biography page on your brand website. Ensure that the biography page has relevant Profile or Person schema code.