Temporary website

[Aldo]

Garri, I regret having placed my hosting package on another domain name but my web hosting provider 123-reg won't change the domain name. It says on their site that a 123-reg hosting package can not be changed once the hosting package has been purchased. If I require another domain name to be hosted, I will need to purchase a new hosting package for the appropriate domain name. How irritating!

[vrooje]

Perhaps it's time to find another host.

My host will point as many domains as I am willing to purchase to the same site. They don't do it in a very good way -- Google will penalize you for most types of domain redirects -- but I believe I recently discovered a workaround to that. If I can do it on my host (powweb.com, probably not ideal for you since it's US-based), you should be able to do it on others. 1and1.co.uk, for example? On their .com site, I can have as many domains as I like in a single package. I haven't used hosting with them but I have no reason to believe they won't point two domains at one file system. And their packages are very reasonable.

Paolo used to use something called ipowerweb, I think. Not sure if he still does, but if you decide to use a different host, I'm sure he'd appreciate the referral if he has an account with them.

[Garri]

Aldo, you have my deepest sympathy. I guess the only solution would be to transfer your domain name away from them to a new hosting company which offers more flexibility. It's an easier process than 10 years ago, but still not one for the fainthearted.

I have to say, that in all of my years in the world of the Internet, hosting companies have been the biggest letdown - a bunch of rapacious bastards!

I use a registration only service via UKReg (part of Fasthosts, whom I'm not keen on. Not fast because they're quick, fast because they're sharp!).

I am able to change the nameservers to point to my hosting company, who are another bunch of b******

As from today, I am now working full time on all of my projects and now looking for dedicated servers, or a vps service.

[Aldo]

Actually, guys, you lost me. My hosting company does allow me to direct my domain name to the one it is hosting. It is just that you said it's not the best thing to do as regards search engines - did I get that right? I have inserted keywords for the search engine to pick up on but will the search engine pick up on that if it is another domain it is being redirected to?

[Garri]

I dunno Aldo, sounds like your best bet is to buy a hosting package related to your domain name, at least that way you will have much more control than simply redirecting.

[Windy]

As from today, I am now working full time on all of my projects and now looking for dedicated servers, or a vps service.

I use WebHosting UK for my VPS Garri - not perfect but not bad either.

[Aldo]

I'll have to change my hosting domain when this one expires. I called the help line and they assured me it does not make any difference as to what the search engines pick up.

[vrooje]

What they probably meant is that laindulgenza.com is going to be your main site according to the search engines, and indulgencedivine.com is only going to be picked up as a link to laindulgenza.com and therefore only really visited by those who get the name directly from you. I am not convinced that Google won't see right through the attempt to use frames to make one site mirror the other, and penalize you for it. You might be able to avoid that by putting really keyword-rich content in the noframes area of indulgencedivine.com, so that Google actually thinks that should have a higher ranking than laindulgenza.com for the keywords that matter to you. But that's a lot of work and it's still two separate sites.

If you prefer that indulgencedivine.com be your primary domain name, why not transfer all your laindulgenza.com files over to the indulgencedivine.com server and make laindulgenza.com the redirecting domain?

Then your main site will be the same for users as for Google, and the filesystem at laindulgenza.com can be replaced by an index.php file that contains only:

Code: Select all

<?php
// Permanent redirection
header&#40;"HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"&#41;;
header&#40;"Location&#58; http&#58;//www.indulgencedivine.com/"&#41;;
exit&#40;&#41;;
?>

(This can be done with other means than a php file, but that's the example I had handy because it's what I use.) The last time I researched it, the 301 redirect was the only kind of redirect that Google treated as kosher and didn't penalize in any way for.

When your hosting package expires, you can then transfer to a new host who will let you point two domains at the same package, using one as a 301 redirect (I had to do this manually with my host, but I was able to do it), so that you're not paying for two packages but only using one.