How to make multiple domain names point to same website

Have .com, .org, .net addresses all display .com in URL in browser

[mrichmond]

Hello,

My system in Win 2000 with IIS 5 and Cold Fusion - one IP address.

I am still struggling with what is the best way to accomplish this.

I have www.mydomain.com www.mydomain.net www.mydomain.org and www.myreallylongname.com

I want the browser to display www.mydoamin.com when any of the above are typed in.

In addition, if someone types in www.myotherdomain.com I want them to be sent to www.mydomain.com/mysubdirectory/

I am not sure what the best way is to do this.

I see a couple alternatives :

1) In my Cold Fusion Application.cfm file I can have a test and depending on what the path is send them to the correct domain name using a cflocation. (Basically doing a redirect)

2) In IIS you can use the Host Headers to determine which site the user entered and send them to that site - I am not sure that this would give the desired effect of always showing www.mydomain.com as the URL

3) Someone mentioned setting each other domain in IIS to "have content come from a redirection URL" but I am not sure exactly how to go about this. Is this in combination with using Host Headers? DO I have to set up a website in IIS for each domain this way?

I would appreciate any help, clarification, or other suggestions.

Thanks

-------------------------
--Megan Richmond

[mattglet]

the redirect in the application.cfm file would work i guess... but i think you can do it via domain forwarding. i'm not to sure about how to do it, maybe someone else will know.

-Matt

[TheNige]

In IIS you can set up a new website....in the MMC for that website click the home directory tab and you can select "a redirection to a URL". Enter the URL you want to forward this domain to. So, if the site is set up for www.a.com you can forward them to www.b.net.

Set up a new site for each one you want to forward. Of course the only works if you have access and rights to set up as many sites as you want.

[ukwebmaster]

Hi Megan

Two main sites required in IIS. Both sites can use host headers and therefore you only require 1 IP address.

Site 1: Set up the first site in IIS and point to the content on your server. Add the IP and www.mydomain.com as the host header.

Site 2: Set up the second site in IIS as a redirect to mydomain.com and use hostheaders to add as many sites as you want all redirecting to mydomain.com (eg IP + www.mydomain.net www.mydomain.org and www.myreallylongname.com).

Using host headers in site 2 means you don't have to create additional sites in IIS.

For info...

For site 1, the domain the user types in is the domain that will show in the browser. You could add other host headers to site 1 if required eg mydomain.com and mydomains.com and whichever the user types is the one that will be shown in the browser.

For site site 2, the domain shown in the browser will be the domain you typed in "redirect domain" in IIS.

Finally, the third site is as per site 2 using host headers (add IP & www.myotherdomain.com) but redirecting to www.mydomain.com/mysubdirectory/

[mrichmond]

Well, I actually ended up setting it up yesterday morning using the host headers - almost identical to what ukwebmaster is describing.

I still am not sure what the best method is. I know several people that have done it all 3 of the ways that I mentioned, but none of us can tell which is the most eficeint.

[TheNige]

ukwebmaster...thanks for correcting me on the only needing 2 sites in IIS.

But, the easiest way is to go to your actual DNS server. All that you have to do is forward your DNS entries to the domain that you want...that way you don't have to set up an additional site for redirects...and these requests will never even hit your server because they are re-routed at the DNS level.

[mrichmond]

But if you redirect at the DNS level (which is what I was originally doing), then it still leaves the URL as the user typed it.

[TheNige]

It shouldn't....unless your DNS is working differently than mine. I am using ZoneEdit for DNS and all that I did on Domain 2 is set a "WebForward" to Domain 1. When I type in Domain 2 it changes automatically to Domain 1....with nothing done on the webserver.