[dba-Tech] Domain Redirection

Stuart McLachlan stuart at lexacorp.com.pg
Fri Sep 21 18:14:22 CDT 2012


Hi Mark,

This is only a problem if you want "naked domain" URLs to point to their website
i.e. both http://customername.com and http://www.customername.com

If not, then the CNAME www.customername.com -> portal.yourhosting.com is the only DNS 
record needed. 


If you do want naked domain URLs to work , my solutions in order of preference would be:

1.  A URL Redirect on your customer's domain host's web server 
2.  A .htaccess file with Rewrite on their  webserver (doesn't work on WIndows servers)
3.  A third party redirection service such as wwwizer.com 
4.  A naked A record pointing to your IP address 

But if using 3 or 4, be aware of the potential problems with directing the entire domain 
elsewhere when the only thing you really want to redirect is http traffic. .

I have not used wwwizer.com myself but have not seen any bad reviews of it and have seen 
it recommended in several places.  

Option A is simple to set up if your customer has CPanel etc access to their domain 
management.

And here's how to do it for Godaddy hosted domains: 
http://support.unbounce.com/entries/261051#301

 
-- 
Stuart


On 21 Sep 2012 at 14:21, Mark Breen wrote:

> Hello All,
> 
> I have a question related to CNAMEs, A Records and DNS.
> 
> I have a site that hosts 20 sites.
> Customers site is www.example.com
> Customer currently points his A record to my IP address
> Customer points his CNAME to his domain
> (This is the usual configuration for most domains)
> 
> My site is www.hostingsite.com
> 
> My problem is if I change IP address, I have to ask 20 customers to update
> their DNS details.  Not Easy!
> 
> I have created a CNAME on my site named portals.hostingsite.com
> I will ask all customers to change their CNAME To point instead to
> portals.hostingsite.com
> 
> This means that www.example.com will be re-directed to
> portals.hostingsite.com.  My server will then serve the site.
> 
> This all works well today, got CNAMES.
> 
> However...
> 
> The A record is not so easy. You cannot point an A record to a CNAME.  It
> must point to an IP address.
> 
> The reason I am posting all this here is to ask you what you think about
> this topic.
> 
> There is a company http://wwwizer.com/naked-domain-redirect that offer A
> record re-direction for free.  Do you think there is anything wrong with
> re-directing A records via a company I am not familiar with ?
> 
> thanks as always for your advice
> 
> Mark
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