Domain Redirect

[teacka]

I have an active website on TCH - www.busyneedle.com; the domain name registration and web hosting is all through TCH. Recently the Yellow Pages ad for this business came out with the incorrect URL, showing it as "www.busyneedlework.com". Since the busyneedlework.com domain was available, I registered it (through TCH), and purchased a "forwarding" credit so I could forward busyneedlework.com to busyneedle.com. After waiting for a few days, the forwarding or parking wasn't working at all. I wanted customers who entered the incorrect URL from the Yellow Pages ad to be seamlessly pointed to the correct website. So I issued a ticket to Support and got some quick and useful help. I finally got the home page of my real Website when I entered "www.busyneedlework.com" in my browser, but unfortunately it displayed "busyneedlework.com" in the address window (I don't want customers to get in the habit of thinking that busyneedlework.com is a (or the) valid website! Furthermore, although the home page came up, the links beneath the home page were not working properly.

 

At this point I'm real confused, because what I thought would be a simple solution to the Yellow Pages ad faux pas has turned out to be the opening of Pandora's box! Mention was made by tech support of using a redirect command in the .htaccess file of my "real" website (www.busyneedle.com), but I'm apparently not even doing that right. I added one line of code at the bottom of the .htaccess file:

 

redirect http://www.busyneedlework.com http://www.busyneedle.com

 

Right now, I get a "can't find" page in response to entering "www.busyneedlework.com" in my browser, although fortunately my real website (www.busyneedle.com) is still working as it should!

 

I browsed some older postings in the Forums and found a few references to asking tech support to "park the new website on top of the old website" to solve what sounded like a similar problem.

 

Does anyone know a simple solution to putting the lid back on Pandora's box? I shouldn't have to purchase a Web hosting package for busyneedlework.com, just to post a one-page website that tells customers to go to the real Web site. I didn't even think I'd have to purchase a "forwarding" credit to accomplish this, but that could have been wishful thinking on my part.

 

 

I'm confused, but determined to solve . . .

[TCH-Don]

I would remove the redirect

and then log into your domain name account at wild west domains for busyneedlework.com

and just forward the domain to your current account domain name busyneedle.com

with out using the masking option.

 

If you have had the techs park busyneedlework.com

on top of busyneedle.com

then the url wil not change,

and you will need to get the techs to unpark busyneedlework.com

 

At least I think this is what you want.

[TCH-Rick]

As Don mentioned (and as I mentioned on the Help Desk) you can have the domain forwarded from the registrar.

 

The other option is to use mod_rewrite to redirect any calls to the new domain to point to the main domain. I did promise to check the forums and help from here so I have added the lines of code to the end of the .htaccess file in your public_html folder that is working fine for me. Please check it now and see if it is working as you want.

 

[it appears you have removed the rewrite commands so that it is working strictly as a parked domain now so the new domain remains in the address bar.]

[teacka]

I picked up Don's reply and followed his suggestion of removing the redirect command. I did this before Rick's reply was posted, so I was unaware that Rick had appended the new lines that I saw in the file. Later, after reading Rick's post, I realized that what I removed from my .htaccess file was what Rick had just added! My timing couldn't have been worse if I had tried.

 

Anyway, before I edited the .htaccess file to remove the redirect code, I did enter "www.busyneedlework.com" into my browser to see what happened. It brought up the correct home page, but again displayed "busyneedlework.com" as the base domain in the address window, and the sub-links did not work.

 

As a point of further clarification on my part, I started this whole ordeal by first registering busyneedlework.com with TCH (registrar), then forwarding it (without masking) to busyneedle.com several days ago. I thought that was all there would be to accomplishing what I desired. However, after waiting 48-72 hours and discovering that nothing was happening, I figured I must have messed up something while managing the new domain in my TCH (registrar) account. That's when I engaged Tech Support (primarily Rick).

 

I guess I'm back to square one at this point, but I'm going to give the systems time to catch up and see if anything looks different in another 12 or 24 hours.

 

Thanks to you both (Don and Rick) for your replies and attempts to get me back on track.

[TCH-Rick]

OK, allow me to try again. I suspect that when you tested you entered www.busyneedlework.com and that domain stayed in the address bar as I had only set up the redirect for busyneedlework.com (without the www in front.) I edited the .htaccess file again and added redirects for either with or without the www in front. This should work as you describe your goals.

[TCH-Rick]

In answer to the problem with the forwarding from the registrar, to use the forwarding feature you would need to use the nameservers for the registrar rather than the ns1.totalchoicehosting.com and ns2.totalchoicehosting.com nameservers.

[TCH-Thomas]

Welcome to the forum, teacka.

[teacka]

OK, allow me to try again. I suspect that when you tested you entered www.busyneedlework.com and that domain stayed in the address bar as I had only set up the redirect for busyneedlework.com (without the www in front.) I edited the .htaccess file again and added redirects for either with or without the www in front. This should work as you describe your goals.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Voila! It works! Thanks, Rick, for bearing with my ignorance and bad timing. It's working exactly as I wanted it now. Since I registered the new domain through TCH's domain registration arm (and the receipt says it's from TCH, so I'm still a little confused about TCH vs. Wild West Domains as the registrar), I figured they assigned the correct name servers at the get-go (NS1.TOTALCHOICEHOSTING.COM, NS2.TOTALCHOICEHOSTING.COM).

 

I'm still curious if, with the redirects you provided in .htaccess, I still need the "Forwarding" feature (and expense) activated on the new domain. Presently the forwarding feature is indeed activated (without masking). I'm tempted to turn forwarding off and see if the .htaccess redirects still work, but then again I'm reluctant to change anything, now that my original goal has been achieved!

 

Many thanks for your expertise and willingness to help me!

[TCH-Bruce]

Welcome to the forum, teacka

[TCH-Don]

Where are my manors

Welcome to the forum, teacka

 

Glad you are all set.

Don't be a stranger

[TweezerMan]

Welcome to the forums, teacka!

[teacka]

Uh-oh, a new glitch. While Rick's redirect fix works okay, I now find that I'm unable to update my website directly from FrontPage. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's due to the changes that have been made to the .htaccess file. I went into cPanel and considered reinstalling FrontPage Extensions, but backed off when the message indicated that "Installing or uninstalling FrontPage Extensions will result in the loss of all .htaccess files in your web area". My exhuberation turned out to be somewhat shortlived! Any ideas on how to overcome this latest hurdle without losing the ground I've gained?

[TCH-Rob]

Welcome to the forum, teacka

[teacka]

More to the "glitch" described in my previous post:

 

Not only can't I publish to my website with FrontPage now, but also the simple order form I had created is no longer executable by customers. Upon hitting the "Submit" button, the following error is displayed:

 

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /_private/Orders/orders2.htm on this server.

 

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.busyneedle.com Port 80

 

 

I'm pretty sure this has something to do with the changes made to the .htaccess file to enable the domain redirect, since it's the only thing that has been changed recently.

 

Can anyone shed some light on this. My client is now losing customer orders. Aaaarrrghhh!!

[teacka]

By the way, here is what the .htaccess file looks like presently; I think the last 6 lines cover the domain redirect issue. I think - but do not know for sure - that everything preceding the last 6 lines represents the original .htaccess file that was in existence before i got into the domain redirect issue.

-----------------------

# -FrontPage-

 

IndexIgnore .htaccess */.??* *~ *# */HEADER* */README* */_vti*

 

<Limit GET POST>

order deny,allow

deny from all

allow from all

</Limit>

<Limit PUT DELETE>

order deny,allow

deny from all

</Limit>

AuthName www.busyneedle.com

AuthUserFile /home/busynee/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.pwd

AuthGroupFile /home/busynee/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.grp

 

RewriteEngine On

Options +FollowSymlinks

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^busyneedlework\.com [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.busyneedlework\.com

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.busyneedle.com/$1 [R=permanent]

---------------------

 

I know that changing the .htaccess file can (but not necessarily will) mess up FrontPage Extensions. The new problems I'm now experienceing on the website make me think that perhaps the .htaccess modifications have indeed affected how FrontPage Extensions work. But I also know that if I reinstall FrontPage Extension on my website to restore sanity, I'll also lose the domain redirect coding that solved my first dilemma of "repointing" a new domain name to my old domain name.

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

[TCH-Thomas]

Hi teacka,

 

I think the best you can do is to contact the help desk with this issue.

As I understand from reading this thread, they have been involved in this so I think it would be best if they continued to try solving it.

[teacka]

This will (hopefully) be my final entry on this thread. As of now, all systems are go, and everything I set out to do has been completed satisfactorily. The ultimate resolution was to remove the domain redirect entries from the .htaccess file, and to enable and pay for domain forwarding from the registrar. Ironically, this is exactly what I attempted to do a week ago. But the missing link from my initial efforts then was that the registrar did not supply me with the correct "parked" Nameservers when I processed my registration and forwarding orders online. A phone call today to the registrar's helpdesk netted me the correct Nameservers, and a confirmation that Domain Forwarding was indeed needed and appropriate for what I wanted to accomplish.

 

I know that some responses on this thread hinted strongly that I needed to call the registrar help desk and, if I had done so sooner, much of my ensuing frustration could have been avoided and your attempts to help would not have been necessary. I sincerely thank you all for your help.

[TCH-Bruce]

Glad you have it working.