Set up your Custom Domain - HL Vanilla Community
<main> <article class="userContent"> <p>When setting up a new <strong>Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla)</strong> community, customizing its <strong>web address (URL)</strong> is an important step. </p><ul><li>We recommend giving your Vanilla community its own home on a <em>subdomain </em>of the <em>primary domain </em>you use for your web presence. <strong></strong></li><li>For example, if your main website is <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">example.com</code>, you should use an address like <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">https://community.example.com</code> for your Vanilla community.</li></ul><p>Once set up, your custom domain hosted on Vanilla will automatically have a <strong>secure sockets layer (SSL)</strong> Certificate generated and installed so that it can be served over HTTPS.</p><h2 data-id="set-up-a-custom-domain">Set up a custom domain</h2><p>New Vanilla communities are given a public URL that looks something like:</p><ul><li><code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">yourcompany.vanillacommunities.com</code></li></ul><p>In order to unify your branding and improve search engine optimization (SEO), you'll want to change your community's URL prior to launch to something like:</p><ul><li><code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">community.yourcompany.com</code></li></ul><p>Fortunately, this is a simple process: </p><ol><li>Access the Dashboard.</li><li>Navigate to <strong>Settings > Appearance > Custom Domain</strong>. </li><li>Follow the provided instructions.</li></ol><div class="embedExternal embedImage display-large float-none"> <div class="embedExternal-content"> <a class="embedImage-link" href="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/GVEL78TWQSWU/access-custom-domain-page.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener ugc" target="_blank"> <img class="embedImage-img" src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/GVEL78TWQSWU/access-custom-domain-page.png" alt="access_custom_domain_page.png" height="756" width="1365" loading="lazy" data-display-size="large" data-float="none" srcset="https://us.v-cdn.net/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,width=10/https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/GVEL78TWQSWU/access-custom-domain-page.png 10w, https://us.v-cdn.net/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,width=300/https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/GVEL78TWQSWU/access-custom-domain-page.png 300w, https://us.v-cdn.net/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,width=800/https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/GVEL78TWQSWU/access-custom-domain-page.png 800w, https://us.v-cdn.net/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,width=1200/https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/GVEL78TWQSWU/access-custom-domain-page.png 1200w, https://us.v-cdn.net/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,width=1600/https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/GVEL78TWQSWU/access-custom-domain-page.png 1600w, https://us.v-cdn.net/6030677/uploads/GVEL78TWQSWU/access-custom-domain-page.png"></img></a> </div> </div> <h2 data-id="secure-your-custom-domain">Secure your custom domain</h2><p>SSL certificates are <strong>automatically</strong> installed for Vanilla URLs <em>and </em>custom domains. There's nothing you need to do!</p><p>However, if you're using a top-level domain, such as <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">yourcommunity.com</code> instead of <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">community.yourcompany.com</code>, please read on.</p><h2 data-id="a-records">A-Records</h2><p>We highly recommend CNAMEs, but we do support static IPs. </p><p>If you would like to use a top-level domain (A-Record), your developer should point your root domain to one (or ideally both, using multiple A-records if you can) of the following IPs:</p><ul><li><code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">162.159.128.79</code></li><li><code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">162.159.138.78</code></li></ul><p>If you're using a provider that supports “CNAME Flattening,” such as Cloudflare, you can even switch this to a flattened CNAME pointing at site-{YOUR_SITE_ID}.onvanilla.net, which is ideal and highly recommended.</p><h2 data-id="subdomains-vs.-subfolders">Subdomains vs. Subfolders</h2><p>Communities are a first-class web application and a primary driver of content in a healthy web presence. Even when a community is not the main focus of your web presence, it should be maintained on its own <strong>subdomain</strong>.</p><p>In the past, communities were frequently set up as <strong>subfolders </strong>(e.g., <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">example.com/community</code>) under the root domain of a web presence. The reality of many legacy server setups made this the simplest way to run a community, and it became fairly standard to see sites organized this way. And in the 90s and early 00s, search engines often did not combine rankings across subdomains, causing “splintered” SEO effects. In the age of web services, none of this is true anymore.</p><p>In the present, all first-class search engines catalog subdomains as an extension of the primary domain. Google Webmaster Tools, in particular, has settings to manually declare subdomains as official parts of your primary web presence, and notes that there is no penalty or side effects to this setup. Google itself offers subdomain-based web services based on this model, so there is no rationale for believing it would penalize it.</p><p>Even if your site has used subfolders for many years, it is safe to transition to a subdomain-based URL system using properly configured 301 redirects. Whenever implementing 301 redirects for any reason, it is normal to see a short-term decline in traffic while the pages are re-indexed.</p><p>Implementing a proper web services architecture by using subdomains for independent applications gives you a more robust and secure web presence with no downsides.</p><h3 data-id="why-we-dont-recommend-subfolders">Why we don’t recommend subfolders</h3><p><strong>Reverse Proxy</strong> is the only reliable way to serve an independent web application in a subfolder of a domain that is mapped elsewhere. In this setup, your main website (e.g., <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">example.com</code>) silently forwards requests for <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">example.com/community</code> to the independent server where your community is hosted. In other words, your server is now a single point of failure for what should be an independent service, since all requests to the community must pass through it.</p><p>In addition, there are other downsides to consider:</p><ul><li><strong>Requests are slower</strong>, because they have to make an extra jump. This <strong>hurts search engine rankings</strong> (Google has stated response times are a factor in rankings).</li><li>Uptime for the community becomes dependent on the main website, adding a big asterisk to any SLA.</li><li>You are responsible for the set up and maintenance of a Reverse Proxy setup, which is what cloud services are designed to eliminate.</li><li>It complicates all network-related troubleshooting, which leads to more complex support needs and communication overhead.</li><li>The community cannot effectively be protected from DDoS via Cloudflare or similar service.</li><li>Security of the community is now dependent on the security of the main website since all requests are intercepted.</li></ul><p>These are serious compromises that come with no measurable benefit.</p><h2 data-id="hubnode">Hub/Node</h2><div class="blockquote"><div class="blockquote-content"><p class="blockquote-line"><em>This section is for Enterprise (FKA VIP) clients using our Multisite feature.</em></p></div></div><p>Each Node is accessible via either a subdomain <em>or</em> a subfolder off a domain shared by the whole Hub. This is called the <strong>Hub URL Format</strong>. </p><p>For example, the <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">muffins</code> Node in the <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">bakery</code> Hub might be accessible at the URLs <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">muffins.bakery.company.com</code> or <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">bakery.company.com/muffins</code>, depending on the configuration. Only one type of Hub URL Format is supported per Hub.</p><p>Clients using our multisite (Hub/Node) feature can structure their domain in one of two ways:</p><h3 data-id="folders-for-each-node">Folders for each node</h3><p>This method uses the format: <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">community.yoursite.com/<nodename></code></p><p>For example:</p><ul><li><code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">community.domain.com/node1</code></li><li><code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">community.domain.com/node2</code></li></ul><h3 data-id="subdomains-for-each-node"> Subdomains for each node</h3><p>This method uses the format: <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0"><nodename>.yoursite.com</code>. Sites cannot have more than one <code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">yoursite.com</code>, and each node must be a subdomain of a single top-level domain.</p><p>For example:</p><ul><li><code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">Node1.community.com</code></li><li><code class="code codeInline" spellcheck="false" tabindex="0">Node2.community.com</code></li></ul><p><strong>📝 NOTE</strong>: This method requires that the DNS is configured for each instance, resulting in more work for you. As a result, this method is considered slightly more fragile.</p><h2 data-id="faq">FAQ</h2><div class="blockquote"><div class="blockquote-content"><p class="blockquote-line"><em>Is it possible to have multiple custom domains leading to the same Vanilla community? </em></p></div></div><ul><li>Vanilla only supports one custom domain being pointed toward it at a time (this being the one you set up on the <strong>Settings > Appearance > Custom Domain </strong>page in the Dashboard). </li><li>If you would like additional URLs to lead to your community, you would need to set up redirects on your end for any other custom domains that you have to take users to the community. </li></ul><h2 data-id="additional-resources">Additional resources</h2><p>Click the link below to access a video expanding on what you learned in this article.</p><div class="js-embed embedResponsive" data-embedjson="{"body":"For more information, please see:","photoUrl":"https:\/\/us.v-cdn.net\/6030677\/uploads\/GXW21TRYG1JP\/share-imagevanilla-community.jpg","url":"https:\/\/success.vanillaforums.com\/kb\/articles\/456","embedType":"link","name":"N. Custom Domain [video] - HL Vanilla Community"}"> <a href="https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/456" rel="nofollow noreferrer ugc"> https://success.vanillaforums.com/kb/articles/456 </a> </div><p><br></p> </article> </main>