Forum Moderators: phranque
My ISP says that the choices are:
"We can create a dns subdomain and point it to your website. You can then use code to redirect to the appropriate directory. OR
We can create a new IIS website for your subdomain. The cost of this is £2.50 per month or £3.50 per month with stats."
Of course the first one is preferable (though the cost isn't an issue). What does "use code to redirect to the appropriate directory" mean? When they setup the subdomain don't they have to point it to a directory I name?
How is the IIS website for the subdomain different to a dns subdomain?
I'm doing the site in Frontpage 2000. Thanks in advance for any help.
I believe what they are suggesting is:
In scenario 1 they would set up a DNS record that points to your existing website. That's all. So sub.domain.com points to domain.com. You would then have to (using ASP or whatever they support) redirect the incoming traffic that has a sub.domain.com header to a directory within your existing site. I.e sub.domain.com would resolve to domain.com/sub. This doesn't seem like a particularly good idea to me as it effectively stops it from being a subdomain.
In scenario two they would set up a DNS record for the sub domain (as above) but also create a new IIS website specific to that subdomain. In this instance you would simply use a new index file in the new root folder. This is the standard approach to creating a subdomain.
A DNS entry is one half of getting a site to respond. You create a DNS entry to direct traffic to the right IP address. It is then the job of the web server (IIS) on that IP to direct that traffic to the right site.
The first suggestion is not something I've come across before so maybe I've misinterpreted. And, perhaps Frontpage has some extension that changes what I've said.
Any other suggestions out there?
Cheers
Stretch
But basically, if you go with scenerio one, you have to look at the server variables and find the domain name they are trying to get to and redirect them to your subdirectory...I'm not sure how that changes the url in the browser...I don't know if it stays sub.domain.com or if it changes to www.domain.com/sub. The issue here is how will it show up in a search engine. Anyone?
It might be worth it to go ahead and spend the extra cash for the new IIS Web site. It's easier to maintain and it's easier on the user.
Thanks so much for your replies.
The issue is that I do want the visitor AND search engine robots to see the site as widgets.my-site.com.
It looks like the safer option is to go down the IIS route. Again, thanks for your help.
