Setting Up a Custom Community URL Domain

One of the benefits of Gradual is your community is hosted on your own domain so your community members know the community is associated with and built under your brand.

Each instance (community) within Gradual lives at it's own domain. Typically, this will be a subdomain of your main website, but can also be a root domain:

community.gradual.com or gradualcommunity.com

Communities cannot live at a path within a domain like gradual.com/community.

Set up

To set up a custom domain you need to have your IT or web team create a CNAME record that points your custom domain to Gradual.

Your CNAME record should point your domain or subdomain to:

ingress.gradual.us

The record should also be DNS Only meaning any proxy settings should be disabled:

Once the CNAME record is pointing to ingress.gradual.us, send a note to the Gradual Team.

Our system will then handle the rest making sure whenever someone visits your community they see your custom domain.

Gradual will issue an SSL certificate and handle TLS termination. If your domain configuration or system needs special handling, we will work with your team to find an alternative method to route traffic - just send a note to the Gradual Team.

Migrating your Gradual instance to a new Custom Domain

To migrate your existing Gradual instance to a new domain, the same domain preparation steps will be true. However, the timing of the domain change as well as some additional consideration needs to be given since the domain is active and traffic will need to be forwarded. The steps below outline the process to migrate your domain.

Establish your new destination domain (e.g. newdomain.community.com)

Create a NEW CNAME record pointing your new domain to ingress.gradual.us

Coordinate a transition time with the Gradual team to migrate your existing domain to the new domain. This should be done at least 72 hours in advance of a desired domain change.

Establish a 301 redirect to point your old domain to your new domain. Once the new domain is connected to your Gradual instance your old domain will no longer work so it is important to do this step to ensure traffic targeting old pages is routed. Remove your existing CNAME record for the old domain and implement a 301 redirect to point the old domain to the new domain.

301 Redirects can only be done by the domain owner, so routing traffic to your new domain will need to be done in your own DNS tools.

Update other instances of the old domain or brand as needed, including...

Community Name
Community Description
Email sender and address
Company names or titles
If using domain restriction for video hosting ensure the new domain is added to the list of allowed embedded video locations

If using the LinkedIn login integration, you must add the new callback URL (with the new domain) to the allowed callback list before Gradual makes the final change.

Here is an example of that:

Verify integrations and automation. In some cases automation in places like Hubspot or other tools may be using the URL for an event or other asset. Ensure references to these URLs in filters or automation are updated to the new domain.

If your community leverages SSO for login please get in touch with the Gradual team as there will be additional steps that need to be done to ensure a smooth transition to a new domain.