Sites and Domains
Sites and Domains is a Setup page for managing all custom domains and site configurations for the org, including Experience Cloud site URLs, Salesforce Sites, and custom domain mappings.
Definition
Sites and Domains is a Setup page for managing all custom domains and site configurations for the org, including Experience Cloud site URLs, Salesforce Sites, and custom domain mappings. Administrators can configure branded URLs, SSL certificates, and DNS settings for all web properties.
In plain English
“Here's a simple way to think about it: Sites and Domains is the canonical inventory of every URL your org owns - Experience Cloud sites, Salesforce Sites, custom domain mappings, SSL certificates. Public surface area, in one view.”
Worked example
The admin at Summit Retail opens Sites and Domains to configure a custom domain for their Experience Cloud customer portal. She maps support.summitretail.com to the portal's Salesforce URL, uploads an SSL certificate, and updates the DNS records. Customers now access the portal at a branded, professional URL instead of a generic Salesforce domain.
Why Sites and Domains is the canonical inventory of every URL your org owns
Salesforce orgs accumulate URLs - Experience Cloud sites, Salesforce Sites, custom domain mappings for branded subdomains, SSL certificates tied to each. Sites and Domains is the consolidated Setup page where every one of those is managed. URLs, certificate expirations, DNS configurations, and the activation status of each site live here in one view.
The reason it deserves periodic review is that public URLs are public surface area. A custom domain whose certificate has lapsed serves browser security warnings to anyone who visits; an Experience Cloud site nobody owns is a candidate for security cleanup; a domain mapping pointing to a deprecated site is broken inbound traffic. Audit the page quarterly, validate certificate expirations against the calendar, and treat unaccounted-for entries the same as any other public-facing infrastructure: somebody owns it, or it shouldn't be there.
How organizations use Sites and Domains
Audits Sites and Domains quarterly; the Q3 review surfaced two Experience Cloud sites tied to closed customer pilots - both still public, both still pulling traffic, both deactivated within a week. The page is now the primary inventory for the company's external surface.
Uses Sites and Domains to manage a partner-portal subdomain (partners.brindlefoods.example) tied to a custom domain mapping with a wildcard SSL cert. The certificate rotation is calendared from the page's "expires" column - the prior approach of hoping someone caught the expiry email did not survive the third near-miss.
Operates a grower-facing Experience Cloud site and a separate consumer-facing recipe site, both managed from Sites and Domains. The page lets a single admin see both surfaces' status, certificate health, and DNS state without having to remember where each one's configuration lives.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Sites and Domains.
- Salesforce SitesSalesforce Help
Test your knowledge
Q1. What architecture concept is Sites and Domains an example of?
Q2. How does Salesforce's multi-tenant model affect Sites and Domains?
Q3. What does Sites and Domains represent in the Salesforce Platform?
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