# How do root level links work?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-root-level-links-work/399520
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [March 29, 2026, 3:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-root-level-links-work/399520 "2026-03-29T15:54:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@paco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/paco)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2026, 3:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-root-level-links-work/399520/1 "2026-03-29T15:54:28Z")
Out of the box, Discourse comes with a few convenience links: `/faq` and `/privacy` and `/about`.
It isn’t obvious how they work. They seem to be topics in the staff channel, which is normally not visible to non-logged-in users. But `/privacy` and `/tos` work for non-logged-in users, even when I have must-be-logged-in turned on. (That’s fine, I don’t mind that, just observing).
Are these specially coded in Discourse? Or are they under my control? Are they just permalinks? I want to make one like `/acceptable-use`and have it behave the same way.
Those pages also have this nice feature of having links at the top of the page labeled “Privacy” and “Terms of Service” that let you navigate. And if you’re logged in you also see the “FAQ” link, but if you’re not logged in you don’t. I can’t figure out how those things are done, because they’re not visible in the body of the topics that contain the terms or the privacy policy.
How do I add one more top-level page that behaves the same way? I want it to act like the FAQ and be visible only to logged-in users, but I’d accept it being public. It’s not a big deal.
And lastly, any hints on how to find the answer to this myself? I did search the meta discourse here a fair bit and couldn’t come up with anything relevant. There must be some documentation or something that I haven’t read carefully enough.
---
### Author:  [@itsbhanusharma](https://meta.discourse.org/u/itsbhanusharma)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2026, 7:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-root-level-links-work/399520/2 "2026-03-29T19:46:39Z")
> [@paco](#):
>
> `/faq` and `/privacy` and `/about`
iirc those are hardcoded and there is no interface in discourse to edit those routes or create new such routes.
If your goal is just to have a few additional static pages and don’t care much about the url, You can use [Page Publishing](https://meta.discourse.org/t/page-publishing/151971) which lets you set topics as static pages which you can also make visible to anonymous users.
---
### Author:  [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2026, 11:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-root-level-links-work/399520/3 "2026-03-29T23:36:51Z")
> [@itsbhanusharma](#):
>
> If your goal is just to have a few additional static pages and don’t care much about the url, You can use [Page Publishing](https://meta.discourse.org/t/page-publishing/151971) which lets you set topics as static pages which you can also make visible to anonymous users.
in addition to using page publishing, you can also create virtual routes by using permalinks (`admin/config/permalinks`):
will make `https://your-forum.com/perma-link` go to the published page
---
### Author:  [@paco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/paco)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2026, 11:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-root-level-links-work/399520/4 "2026-03-29T23:46:32Z")
Really helpful, thanks! It also makes me feel better that I hadn’t overlooked something in the docs. I’m still learning.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2026, 11:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-root-level-links-work/399520/5 "2026-04-28T23:46:34Z")
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.