Redirect of domains with and without www - IIS

[tomapple]

Our web site is on an IIS server and I want to do a redirect of domain.com to www.domain.com so that the visitors browser will always show www.domain.com and not domain.com. I have read online information that this is possible and have also seen instructions for doing so in Internet Services Manager.

I asked my web host to setup the redirect and they came back with:

"Our system uses ip based virtualhosting. What this means is that each seperate website configuration has it's own ip address assigned to it.

Therefore when someone goes to domain.com versus www.domain.com since they have the same ip address they goto the same site.

For us to setup a url redirection as requested we would have to assign domain.com to a seperate ip address, setup a new configuration for that webiste and then have that new website configuration redirect to www.domain.com."

Can anybody give me some insight on this?

[Dreamquick]

If you're running something like ASP on the site you can just check the HTTP_HOST header that the browser issues via Request.ServerVariables, and if it's not in a set list then issue a redirect to the domain you actually want them to go to.

- Tony

[pageoneresults]

It sounds like they are not familiar with how to set this up without using another IP. You might want to direct them here...

Redirect a domain such as example.com to www.example.com [xoc.net]

[tomapple]

PageOne,

Actually I had provided them the same link you mentioned. After which they came back to me with the reply in my original post.

[plumsauce]

The link given to you by pageoneresults should work
flawlessly.

Your host is correct in that they need to setup
an additional site, but that is it, other than
the remaining directions from the linked article.

They do not need to give you an additional ip, or
change your dns.

Guess you need to have another try at them while
speaking very, very slowly.

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[tomapple]

My understanding is that both www and non-www were already setup on the IIS server. You can enter either www.domain.com or domain.com in a browser and both work exactly the same(the only difference being the lack of "www").

What my provider seems to be indicating is that there is a difference in how their servers/IP addresses are configured versus the configuration of the server setup on the example page.

[plumsauce]

You are correct, the dns resolution for your
domain will work correctly, and to the same
web site, if either the site is set up with
no host headers, or both host headers.

Since they use a dedicated ip for you,
they are probably using no host headers.

What the tutorial is suggesting is that
a second site be set up to implement
the redirect.

What I am further suggesting is that the
second site can use the same ip. But,
have a host header of example.com, which
then redirects to www.example.com.

The work involved for your host is no
more than setting up a second blank
site pointed at your original content
with a redirect.

They are just not getting it.

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