A custom domain is the “personal address” to your content online. It gives your supporters an “address” that they can put into their phone or computer browser and land on your website.
Let’s look at an example of a custom domain:
giraffesociety.org ← This is a custom domain because it does NOT have Nationbuilder or other branding. It says who the organization is, like a big sign outside of a building.
(add www to the URL in the picture)
Now let’s look at a default Nationbuilder domain:
When you set up a new Nation you have a default nationbuilder domain which is the “slug” of your nation along with a .nationbuilder.com after it. This is NOT a custom domain.
Giraffesociety.nationbuilder.com ← This is not a custom domain because it has the word NationBuilder included
Whenever you are logged into your nation you will be able to see this default Nationbuilder domain.
Now that we know what a custom domain is let’s learn about why custom domains are important and why you might want to have one for your website.
Here are three good reasons to have a custom domain:
You have your own branding and it's crystal clear to your supporters that they have landed on your website.
You have the opportunity to create email addresses @yourcustomdomain.org instead of @gmail.com or @outlook.com or other email service providers
Having your own custom domain gives you the ability to authenticate yourself as an email sender (when you send from an email address with a custom domain) and send emails that are more likely to get delivered.
Now, it's time for you to decide whether you would like to connect a custom domain and have NationBuilder manage its DNS settings or whether this is something you and your team would like to manage for yourself.
To figure out which option is best, check out this article: How to decide who manages you custom domain DNS settings.