Understanding how your community domain works with pages

Last updated: August 08, 2025

Circle’s website builder allows you to create beautiful, integrated pages that connect seamlessly with your community. This article explains how the domain works when using these pages, and what’s possible when setting things up.

Circle is built as a unified platform. That means your community and the pages you create using the website builder will live on the same domain. You can’t host your community on one domain and your pages on another. They’re part of a single, unified experience.

This ensures a smooth and consistent journey for your audience, from the moment they visit your domain to when they join your community.

Before we dive further into page URLs, let’s first quickly revisit what domain options you have for your community. You have two choices when it comes to your community domain (essentially your community URL):

• Default Circle domain: If you don’t set up your own domain, your Circle site will use a subdomain on Circle’s domain (circle.so). For example, “https://yourcommunity.circle.so”. You have the ability to customize the subdomain part of this default domain from your community settings.

• Custom domain: You can also connect your own domain, which you have purchased from providers like GoDaddy or Namecheap, instead of using Circle’s default domain. Note that we don’t sell or register domains, so you’ll manage that through your domain provider. This means, once set up, your domain URL will lead users directly to your community.

  • You can set your community domain to be either:

    • A root domain, like “domain.com”

    • A subdomain, like “community.domain.com”

  • 📚 For detailed instructions on setting up a custom domain for your community, see our guide on root and subdomains. If you’d like to switch from your current custom domain to a new one, see Updating custom domain to a different one.

Any page you create using Circle’s website builder will be part of the same domain as your community. You cannot place them on a separate domain, as they are designed to live and work together under one domain.

For example, say you’ve created a pricing page using the website builder and set its slug to “/pricing”:

• If you’re using a Circle subdomain, the page URL will be: “https://yourcommunity.circle.so/pricing”

• If you are using your own root domain, the page URL will be: “https://domain.com/pricing”

To get the most out of this unified approach, if you have already purchased a domain, we recommend setting up your community's root domain. If you have already set up a subdomain for your community, we suggest moving it to the root domain instead. 

When you set up your website pages using our website builder and connect your custom root domain, you get:

• A unified, professional experience: Your site feels cohesive and polished, with your pages and community areas presented as one integrated site.

• Seamless navigation for all users: Visitors can go from your landing page to sign-up or purchase, then into the community without disruptive redirects between the separate marketing site and community. Members can browse between pages and community spaces while staying logged in.

• Better SEO: All your content lives under the same domain, so community discussions, public pages, and resources work together to improve your site’s search rankings.

• Simplified domain management: Once you set your custom root domain in your community, you only have one domain to manage, without juggling multiple sites.

When you use a custom root domain:

• Your community is accessible at “https://domain.com”

• Your pages live just a slug away: /pricing, /about, /support, and so on

ℹ️ Note: This is completely optional. If you prefer to keep your marketing site separate, you can host it elsewhere and run your Circle community on a subdomain. But for the smoothest, most connected experience, keeping everything on your root domain is a big advantage.

If you’re moving your community from a custom subdomain (like “community.domain.com”) or root domain to a different domain (“newdomain.com”), you’ll need to set up a domain redirect. Without it, anyone who visits your old links, such as bookmarks or previously shared URLs, will see an error instead of being taken to your new domain.

Redirects ensure that:

• Visitors with old links still land on the correct page.

• Search engines update their records over time, helping preserve your SEO.

• You don’t have to manually update every link you’ve ever shared.

You can set it up through your domain provider or Cloudflare. For a detailed guide on setting it up through Cloudflare, see Set up a domain redirect using Cloudflare.

You can keep everything on your custom domain while tailoring the experience for different audiences using Circle’s Site settings and Page settings.

• Default landing pages: Use the default setting in your community to choose where your visitors, new members, and existing members land when they visit your root domain (e.g., domain.com).

  • For visitors specifically, you can choose one of the pages you have built in Circle. For example, when your visitors go to https://domain.com, you want them to be directed to the pricing page; you can set that page as the default in the settings.

  • For new and existing members, you can select one of the community spaces or feed as a landing page.

• Navigation header: On desktop and web browser platforms, you can add any page or community area (such as spaces, events, or courses) or a custom link to the top navigation bar as a tab for both logged-in and logged-out users. This makes it easy for visitors and members to browse your site like a normal website. For example:

  • For logged-out members, your top navigation could include: Home (landing page) | Pricing/Join | About | Contact

  • For logged-in members, your top navigation could include: Community | Courses | Events | Support

📚 To learn more about access control and visibility of your pages, see Understanding page access and visibility.

• Getting started with websites

• Configure page settings

• Custom domains