Use Lockers
Your community's web address
Understand the hosted address, the custom domain, and what members see when you connect one.
The short version
- Every Locker has a hosted address at name.lockers.social, and it works from the day you create the community.
- A Pro Locker can also have one custom domain. Once that domain verifies, it becomes the address members see.
- The hosted address keeps working either way. It forwards to the custom domain and keeps the page the link pointed at.
The hosted address
When you create a Locker, it gets an address in the form name.lockers.social. Share it anywhere you would share a website address. On the Community plan this is the community's address, and it stays that way for as long as the community exists.
Adding a domain you own
A custom domain is a Pro feature. Each community uses one domain, and only the owner can add, replace, or remove it. The Domain card lives under Admin, then Settings, then Domains, and it takes you through adding the hostname, putting the records Lockers shows into your DNS, and selecting Verify. The article Connect a custom domain to your Locker covers that in full, including what to check when verification does not pass.
A subdomain such as community.example.com is the simpler choice for most owners. An apex domain such as example.com works too, and it routes the matching www address as well.
What members see once it verifies
From then on the custom domain is the address in the browser bar. Someone who opens name.lockers.social is forwarded to the custom domain, and the page they asked for travels with them, so a link to one course lands on that same course at the new address.
That forwarding is why the links you shared before you connected the domain still reach the right place. Old bookmarks work. New ones will show the custom domain, and both get people into the same community.
The first time a member arrives after you connect the domain, they sign in again. Selecting Sign in takes them to lockers.social and brings them back to the page they started on, with a Signing you in message on screen while they return. A member who is already signed in to lockers.social in that browser sees two quick redirects and no form at all.
If the custom domain stops routing
Routing ends in one of three situations: you remove the domain, you replace it with a different one, or Pro access ends and the custom-domain grace period runs out fourteen days later. After that, anyone who opens the custom address is sent back to the hosted address, and members sign in again there. Your content and your members are untouched, and the Domain card offers Upgrade to Pro to restore routing if you want the domain back.
What a custom domain does not change
A custom domain covers the web address and nothing else. Community notification email still sends from notify@lockers.social, and connecting a domain does not create a sending address on your own domain. You can still pick which address receives replies to those notifications, which the article Set where community email replies go explains.
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