Redirects

[perkbrian]

I recently purchased a website here. shortly after purchasing, decisions were made, and now we are looking to redirect from another site to this one.

what i am looking to do is not simply a 301 redirect, but an ACTUAL redirect, where it is handled internally, and the user does not know that they have been redirected.

so i want forum.newwebsite.com to actually get its information from oldwebsite.com

can anyone help me here?

[Vitaliy K.]

This will be possible if you add 'oldwebsite.com' as an addon domain to your account. It will have its content stored in its own directory (e.g. 'public_html/olddomain'). Then, when creating the 'forum.newwebsite.com' subdomain, you will have to specify 'public_html/olddomain' directory as this subdomain's document root. Basically, you will have these two links displaying the same content.

[perkbrian]

I understand that, and i know how that works.

what I forgot to mention was that olddomain.com is hosted by another provider on another server, and i want forum.olddomain.com to point to newdomain.com

[Vitaliy K.]

In this case, you can park or add 'forum.olddomain.com' as an addon domain to your account and ask the company hosting your 'olddomain.com' domain to edit the DNS zone for the subdomain 'forum.olddomain.com' to point to our server (i.e. 'newdomain.com ').

[Alan B]

People often use the terms "redirect" and "park" interchangeably, but they are two different things:

Redirect is a function of .htaccess, often used for temporary redirection to another location or when moving a site.

Park is a function of a DNS entry, whereby the DNS zone for the "parked" domain resolves at the same location as the original domain (the one that the parked domain is "parked on top of".)

Park and Redirect are two methods of having one domain lead to another domain. Each is useful but for different things. It depends what you're trying to do.

Park

If maindomain.com contains your web site, you can park parkeddomain.com "on top of" or "pointing to" maindomain.com.

Then, when someone enters parkeddomain.com in their browser, they will see the maindomain.com site pages. But, their browser will still show parkeddomain.com. So, if the site has maindomain.com/products/flubber.htm, then if a visitor enters parkeddomain.com in their browser and navigates to the same page, the visitor will see parkeddomain.com/products/flubber.htm in the browser's address/location field. Behaviour is different if you use Redirect.

You can repeat the parking process to park multiple domains all pointing to the same maindomain.com.

Park is a function of a DNS entry, whereby the DNS zone for the "parked" domain resolves at the same location as the original domain (the one that the parked domain is "parked on top of". With Park, the system actually recognizes one domain to be the other domain. I believe with WHM/CPanel you can only park on your own server.


Park Example

If you have maindomain.com that contains the web site, you can use WHM or CPanel to park parkeddomain.com "on top of" or "pointing to" maindomain.com. Then when someone enters parkeddomain.com in their browser, they will see the maindomain.com site pages. But, their browser will still show parkeddomain.com.

So, if the site has maindomain.com/products/flubber.htm, then if a visitor enters parkeddomain.com in their browser and navigates to the same page, the visitor will see parkeddomain.com/products/flubber.htm in the browser's address/location field.

You can repeat the parking process to park multiple domains all pointing to the same maindomain.com.


Redirect

Redirect is a function of .htaccess, usually used for temporary redirection to another location or when moving a site. Redirect means you show up at one address and you get sent to another. You enter one domain in the browser, and end up at a different domain.

Redirect Example

maindomain.com contains the web site. Create a Redirect redirecting extradomain.com to maindomain.com.

Then, when someone enters extradomain.com in their browser, they will be redirected to maindomain.com and its web site. Their browser will show maindomain.com.

[perkbrian]

Thanks Alan,

that's exactly the information i was looking for.

[Alan B]

You're welcome. I'm sure some people could have been confused by your request for an "ACTUAL redirect", since there is no such term. A 301 Redirect is a true redirect, which is handled internally by the web server. 301 is "moved permanently", a permanent redirect. I think you were confusing 301 redirect with a meta refresh. A refresh is a client-side browser method, not a true server redirect.

But, I thought I could see what you wanted anyway.