miner2049er Posted October 5, 2005 Posted October 5, 2005 Some questions... (1) I am starting up a website, and have secured the domain name with Yahoo domains. In fact, I have secured in total four slight variations of the domain name - the primary one, say for example smokey.com, plus three other similar names - smokie.com, smoky.com and smokee.com. I wish to start a reseller account to host these, but want all domains to just end up sending visitors to the primary one, no matter what variation they entered. When I click on the TCH "Buy Now" option I get the following: Select a domain option: o I will use My Existing Domain and update My Nameservers only. Please enter a valid domain name. Existing Domain: [ ] - [ ] Continue >> What should I enter here? (2) Over at the Yahoo, I noticed they have help pages for the following settings: A and CNAME Records MX Records Name Servers but any quick tips would be appreciated on what I should enter to point all four domains to TCH. (3) What about email being sent to any one of these four name variations? Say I published a contact email as support@smokey.com, but someone sent an email to support@smoky.com. Can I get all mail routed into a single "server-side-inbox", or would I have to pull via POP3 from four different places? (4) Regarding the analysis of the page access logs - can I get all accesses (for all four name variations) sent to a single log file, or would I have to combine four separate files? (5) If a visitor had entered one of the three variations, rather than the main name, I may want to display a splash page saying something like: you entered smokee.com for future reference the correct website name is smokey.com *** site Is the display of such a page something that can be handled outside of my code? (i.e. by the web server.) Or would my code, say index.php, be able to detect what had been typed in by looking at some sort of PHP environment variable? (6) Any other important things I should be considering regarding this "four-into-one" situation? (7) I also have a personal website, not connected with those previously mentioned, and also wish to have that hosted on TCH inside this reseller account. How would that be added? Thanks in advance for any replies (and if you could indicate the correspondening question number alongside, that would be great.) Cheers, Miner2049er. Quote
abinidi Posted October 5, 2005 Posted October 5, 2005 see comments inline Some questions... (1) I am starting up a website, and have secured the domain name with Yahoo domains. In fact, I have secured in total four slight variations of the domain name - the primary one, say for example smokey.com, plus three other similar names - smokie.com, smoky.com and smokee.com. I wish to start a reseller account to host these, but want all domains to just end up sending visitors to the primary one, no matter what variation they entered. When I click on the TCH "Buy Now" option I get the following: Select a domain option: o I will use My Existing Domain and update My Nameservers only. Please enter a valid domain name. Existing Domain: [ ] - [ ] Continue >> What should I enter here? You want to enter your primary domain name. Later you can park the other domains on the same account, so that when users typein the alternate domain name they are shown the same content. Or, later you can set the other domains for forward to your primary domain. In fact, for this, you don't even need a reseller account. You would only need a reseller account if you wanted the different domains to point to different content. Since they would all be pointing to the same content, you may find that a virtual account gives you better value. (2) Over at the Yahoo, I noticed they have help pages for the following settings: A and CNAME Records MX Records Name Servers but any quick tips would be appreciated on what I should enter to point all four domains to TCH. Here you want to change the Name Servers, so use the Name Servers option. Then, in the specified fileds you would enter the DNS infomration sent to you in your TCH welcome email. You won't know this until you actually set up your account and a TCH staff member activates it. It will probably be something like DNX.TOTALCHOICEHOSTING.COM and DNY.TOTALCHOICEHOSTING.COM, where the X and the Y are two different numbers. You will receive this information in your Welcome email. So there is nothing to do yet. (3) What about email being sent to any one of these four name variations? Say I published a contact email as support@smokey.com, but someone sent an email to support@smoky.com. Can I get all mail routed into a single "server-side-inbox", or would I have to pull via POP3 from four different places? The short answer is "yes", and we can give you more information once you have your domains either forwarded or parked. The decision to forward or park may depend on how you want email to be handled, so when you get to that point, you should ask this question specifically again, but with the information about whether you would rather park or forward your domains. (4) Regarding the analysis of the page access logs - can I get all accesses (for all four name variations) sent to a single log file, or would I have to combine four separate files? I think these are separate if you are parking, but the same if you are forwarding. Maybe somebody else can tell you more. (5) If a visitor had entered one of the three variations, rather than the main name, I may want to display a splash page saying something like: you entered smokee.com for future reference the correct website name is smokey.com *** site Is the display of such a page something that can be handled outside of my code? (i.e. by the web server.) Or would my code, say index.php, be able to detect what had been typed in by looking at some sort of PHP environment variable? If you park your domains or set up separate hosting accounts for them (if you do a reseller account) then you can do this by modifying the .htaccess file. Somebody can give you more specific directions when you decide whether to park or set up separate hosting accounts. (6) Any other important things I should be considering regarding this "four-into-one" situation? (7) I also have a personal website, not connected with those previously mentioned, and also wish to have that hosted on TCH inside this reseller account. How would that be added? If you decide to do a reseller account, then you would set up your own personal account in your own Web Hosting Reseller account in your main cPanel account. However, again, you might consider creating two separate virtual accounts, as this may still provide better value to to you than one reseller account. The way I look at it you have to make a couple of choices. 1. Do you want to do reseller or virtual? Two virtual accounts may be cheaper than one reseller account, and dollar-for-dollar may provide better value of services. However, if you want to have each of your five domains hosted on their own accounts, you will have to do a reseller account. And as I think about it, TCH may consider it a violation of the TOS if you have the warning page that you propose, alerting users that they aren't at the right site. So, I guess if you are doing that you may be required to have a reseller account. Mabye one of the TCH staff can clarify that point. 2. Do you want to park your domains on you main domain or set up separate accounts for them or just forward them at the registrar? If you park them, then each domain will totally function as if it were the main account, and it would be shown in the URL. Your .htaccess file could be modified to warn users that they aren't on the main account (but again, you may have to be a reseller account for this to function). If you forward them, then when users type in smokee.com they will automatically go to smokey.com, and the URL will change, and there won't be any alert in the window. If you set up separate accounts for them witin the reseller account, then their index page can alert them that they are on the wrong site, and can redirect them to the correct site after 5 or 10 seconds or whatever. In the end, you may decide that a reseller account works for you. I am certain that you can do everything you asked about if you have a reseller account. I think that you MAY be able to do it all with a virtual account, but you can wait for a TCH staff to respond to this thread, or you can open a help desk ticket (use "unknown" as the username and password) to get this answered very quickly. Best wishes. Quote
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