Separate design Members site

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1

I’d like to build a site that has a public side, and a private side.

I’ve added a Members only area to the site as is, but I want more flexibility to design the members area as completely separate from the public site…i.e. I don’t want to have to fight Editor X when it tries to link/reference/dominate everything on the members side to the public pages.

The member site is meant for accessing content/community only, and I want it to feel and operate differently.

Is it advisable/normal to design a separate site, make it the Members Only site, and then just attach it to the subdomain of the public site?

Any other methods or tools I’m missing? I’m not an expert, but feel pretty comfortable with the tool.

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2

So to follow up, the question was is it advisable/normal to design a separate private site for members only, and attach it to the subdomain?

Anyone out there more experience seen this type of practice? Have advice against it? No any big red flags about it, so I should avoid it?

3

Hey @nathanwallrus ,

You should be able to customize the member area as mentioned in our article. https://support.wix.com/en/article/customizing-your-members-area-8681850

Were there any changes you were unable to make or generally having difficulties making?

4

Thanks. I can customize the members area for sure, but it’s still treated as a child of the public site in terms of design (Headers/Masters/Menus), so if I want to have a very different motif in the members area and I have to do a lot of work to “resist” those design elements.

I want the members area to feel completely different than the public site. Don’t want any of the public menus. Want a new header with a different motif there. Etc.

In reality, I would like to have two different websites (speed is one consideration), but one of them would be public on the domain, and one would be private on the sub-domain. Does anyone know if this is possible, or something that really should not be done?

5

I think it might be okay though I haven’t done work for clients personally. I have seen a lot of sites have a completely different site for things like their shop, events, corporate and also having subdomains for things blog.

I guess it depends on the usage and in this case if both sites will look and function differently, might be easier to just make a separate site (especially if there will be a lot of pages on one or the other or both).

6

Hi @Rob, I noticed you’re from the Wix Team, so wanted clarify about a similar issue between primary and subdomains.

  • Do both sites to need be on premium plans, in order to connect and edit them on Wix/Velo? Or only 1 premium plan will suffice and subdomain doesn’t need a premium plan?
  • I want them to share the DB (subdomain for writing, primary domain for reading). Is the only way via wix-routers/fetch, or is there a no-code way for subdomains?

Thanks and regards,