34 replies to this topic

[Nameless_]

I was about to put this in with the other thread that I made on changing hosts, but then it wouldn't be on topic and it wouldn't attract more visitors to Trap17, so I thought I'll create a new thread about my question on a new thread on here... And the question is...

Can you link two or more free domain providers to the same site?

OK, I'm not a domain hogger. But that's only because I don't own any domains... But I want to be one... is it possible to link two or more FREE domain providers to the same site? Like, co.cc or co.nr or something like that? It's be like, so cool if you can, and I would like it if it is possible.

I know that it is possible with paid domains...

What do you guys think?

Also, just for curiosity... do you think that it will be possible to link things to the same site even on different free domain accounts? I was just wondering, I've never created an account on free domain providers before, but I was just wondering that if (IF, I said...) if they had a limit to the amount of domains that you can have, do you think that it will be possible to um... link the different domains that you own (that's free) that's on different accounts (due to the domain limit) to the same site?

Thanks...

[Baniboy]

You can always use redirects to redirect from the other domains to another one. Not exactly search engine friendly, but gets the job done.

[rpgsearcherz]

I agree with the redirects but you could also set up subdomains that load up the main website page and just link the new domains to that one.

Not sure how to explain better but here is my theory behind it:

Let's assume your site is www.nameless.com and you want www.nameless.co.cc and nameless.co.nr

You would take nameless.com and set it as your main domain
Create two subdomains and have them load up the main page (I think this would be done by using the .htaccess file)
Link the domains you wish to use (the .co.cc and .co.nr) each to one of the subdomains.

I'm not 100% sure if this would work as I've never tried, but it seems like it would.

As for the .htaccess you would tell each subdomain that the "index" was in /../index.html

Or whatever your main page is. This would tell it to go out one folder and then load up that index.

[Nameless_]

rpgsearcherz, on Sep 16 2009, 12:55 PM, said:

I agree with the redirects but you could also set up subdomains that load up the main website page and just link the new domains to that one.

Not sure how to explain better but here is my theory behind it:

Let's assume your site is www.nameless.com and you want www.nameless.co.cc and nameless.co.nr

You would take nameless.com and set it as your main domain
Create two subdomains and have them load up the main page (I think this would be done by using the .htaccess file)
Link the domains you wish to use (the .co.cc and .co.nr) each to one of the subdomains.

I'm not 100% sure if this would work as I've never tried, but it seems like it would.

As for the .htaccess you would tell each subdomain that the "index" was in /../index.html

Or whatever your main page is. This would tell it to go out one folder and then load up that index.

But that's different domains extensions ... what I'm thinking about is like...

www.nameless.co.cc

and www.nameless2.co.cc

so it's different website name thingies... the title, I think, but with the same domain extensions.

[rpgsearcherz]

It would work the same way if my idea worked properly. You could do anything you want:


www.mynameisnameless.com
www.nameless.com
www.namelezz.com
www.nameless.co.cc
www.namelezz.co.cc

Etc. and you should be able to link up unlimited domains to the site. The more I think about it, I think you can even link them up without doing subdomains if you wanted. There should be settings in Cpanel to just link up more domains.

I think .co.cc is redirection though, in which case it's irrelevant since all it does is "refresh" with your site in the browser after.

[TheDisturbedOne]

If the domains have DNS you can link them. You could put them as parked domains, and just redirect them to the main site. I would say go for the top level domain though, since co.cc can (legally) take away the domain whenever they want. Not saying they will, but they can.

Co.nr is a waste of time since you have to link back to them, and they have quite strict rules as far as I remember. http://smartdots.com has some good domains, and I started my site off with them. They don't have DNS, but they give you an option for no ads, and they have a wide selection of domains, so most likely your keyword isn't taken already.


But in closing, I think that you should just get a top level domain. They make the website seem a lot more professional, and are very easy to remember. And with the amount of posts you have, I'm surprised you don't already have one.

[MasterBB]

1st of all, the answer for your question is: YES, YOU CAN!

There are actually 2 methods for that purpose:
1.Parked Domain
2. URL redirection.

Before I explain further, I have to clear up something : co.cc and co.nr is not actually the same. With co.cc you got fully registered domain. In this sense you can modify the DNS so that it direct the domain to the host you specify. While as for co.nr is actually redirection domain.

What is parked domain?
Just say you have yoursite.co.cc and you purchase another domain, let say like you ask, another .co.cc, yoursite2.co.cc, both of this domains can represent the same website, no doubt. The technique no different whether or not you had paid or free domain. 1st, all you need to do is to set the DNS in your domain lead to your hosting service. (just like when you 1st register your initial domain). For example the DNS to your hosting account are: ns1.hosting.com and ns2.hosting.com. In this way, you tell the domain to go for your hosting direction.

Now, once you did that, the next thing you need to do is to tell your hosting that you have another domain directed to it, representing the whole website (not a subdomain). For this matter you use Parked Domain.

After you completed this 2 task, your website now available for both domain.

Now, to answer your second question, how bout if you used all the available "parked domain" in your hosting account?(mostly paid domain come with unlimited domain though). If you still wanna add another domain name, all you need to do is register in redirection url account. This is totally different from parked domain, I must assert. Redirection is basically the same method like shorting your url and then masking it. When someone come to your site from this redirection url (just say like yoursite.co.nr) they were actually not landing in the real website instead only "mirror" of it (frame based). If you confuse on this, just try viewing the page source on your redirection url. You will see that it only contain code of frame html.

Can you just use 2 hosting using two domain but merely the same website? Oh yes you can. But you will recognize by search engine having duplicate website, which is "destructing" in SEO term : not SE friendly. Redirection also not a search engine friendly, so use it wisely.

[Nameless_]

MasterBB, on Sep 17 2009, 01:36 PM, said:

1st of all, the answer for your question is: YES, YOU CAN!

There are actually 2 methods for that purpose:
1.Parked Domain
2. URL redirection.

Before I explain further, I have to clear up something : co.cc and co.nr is not actually the same. With co.cc you got fully registered domain. In this sense you can modify the DNS so that it direct the domain to the host you specify. While as for co.nr is actually redirection domain.

What is parked domain?
Just say you have yoursite.co.cc and you purchase another domain, let say like you ask, another .co.cc, yoursite2.co.cc, both of this domains can represent the same website, no doubt. The technique no different whether or not you had paid or free domain. 1st, all you need to do is to set the DNS in your domain lead to your hosting service. (just like when you 1st register your initial domain). For example the DNS to your hosting account are: ns1.hosting.com and ns2.hosting.com. In this way, you tell the domain to go for your hosting direction.

Now, once you did that, the next thing you need to do is to tell your hosting that you have another domain directed to it, representing the whole website (not a subdomain). For this matter you use Parked Domain.

After you completed this 2 task, your website now available for both domain.

Now, to answer your second question, how bout if you used all the available "parked domain" in your hosting account?(mostly paid domain come with unlimited domain though). If you still wanna add another domain name, all you need to do is register in redirection url account. This is totally different from parked domain, I must assert. Redirection is basically the same method like shorting your url and then masking it. When someone come to your site from this redirection url (just say like yoursite.co.nr) they were actually not landing in the real website instead only "mirror" of it (frame based). If you confuse on this, just try viewing the page source on your redirection url. You will see that it only contain code of frame html.

Can you just use 2 hosting using two domain but merely the same website? Oh yes you can. But you will recognize by search engine having duplicate website, which is "destructing" in SEO term : not SE friendly. Redirection also not a search engine friendly, so use it wisely.

I don't understand... if it is a redirect domain, why does it do bad in Search Engine Optimizations? I mean, I understand if it's two different sites that are actually the same website on two different domains... Search Engines like Google don't like to have duplicate results, so they put your website ranking down, but if it's a redirect domain... well, doesn't that just mean that it's two domains linking to the same site?

And to The Disturbed One... the thing is, I can't choose the best domain name. I've been thinking about it so much that my head will literally burst for the past few weeks, and I still can't come up with one... But free domain first, top level domain comes later.

[rpgsearcherz]

Nameless_, on Sep 17 2009, 05:45 AM, said:

I don't understand... if it is a redirect domain, why does it do bad in Search Engine Optimizations? I mean, I understand if it's two different sites that are actually the same website on two different domains... Search Engines like Google don't like to have duplicate results, so they put your website ranking down, but if it's a redirect domain... well, doesn't that just mean that it's two domains linking to the same site?

And to The Disturbed One... the thing is, I can't choose the best domain name. I've been thinking about it so much that my head will literally burst for the past few weeks, and I still can't come up with one... But free domain first, top level domain comes later.

Redirection is bad because technically you are giving everyone a web address that is not the actual address.

Redirection cloaks your site with whatever the redirection address is (if there is one).


More or less think of it this way:

You just got a new car and you want people to look at it. So you have two choices. You can either send them to look at *your* car or you can send them elsewhere and have someone there tell them where your car really is.

This is how redirection works. It's clear one is more efficient than the other, and Google/others would much rather have the more direct approach.

[TheDisturbedOne]

I would actually disagree with you with the free domain coming first, and then the top level comes next. I lost quite a lot of SEO value when I spent 3 months on a free sub-domain. And not the trap17 one, a redirect. I got a real domain in November of last year, and it took me about 6 months to get my new site up in the search engines. My site has done much better on a top level domain (Now in the top 50 for a widely searched term, "Disturbed," in Yahoo and Google), and a lot easier to remember.

Remember, when you switch to a top level domain, you will lose all SEO value from your old domain. If you want to test out a site before you make it final, I'd say do it on a .trap17.com subdomain before, so that you aren't using up time on a paid domain before you go live. But right when you go live, got with a top level domain!!

[Nameless_]

rpgsearcherz, on Sep 17 2009, 09:45 PM, said:

Redirection is bad because technically you are giving everyone a web address that is not the actual address.

Redirection cloaks your site with whatever the redirection address is (if there is one).


More or less think of it this way:

You just got a new car and you want people to look at it. So you have two choices. You can either send them to look at *your* car or you can send them elsewhere and have someone there tell them where your car really is.

This is how redirection works. It's clear one is more efficient than the other, and Google/others would much rather have the more direct approach.

No, I won't give them the fake address... I'll give them the REAL address. But if someone types in a similar address, it will go straight to my site, without me telling them that my site has a fake address in the first place.

So Google will not store the fake address in their database. They will probably not even know that there is a fake address with my site. They will only store the REAL address in their database, and it will be yeah...

So people will search lots of psychic related terms on free hosting domains, and they won't know that they all redirect to my site. But Google will only store the .com domain...

I hope it works like this...

Like Gmail... it actually directs to mail.google or something like that.

TheDisturbedOne, on Sep 18 2009, 05:53 AM, said:

I would actually disagree with you with the free domain coming first, and then the top level comes next. I lost quite a lot of SEO value when I spent 3 months on a free sub-domain. And not the trap17 one, a redirect. I got a real domain in November of last year, and it took me about 6 months to get my new site up in the search engines. My site has done much better on a top level domain (Now in the top 50 for a widely searched term, "Disturbed," in Yahoo and Google), and a lot easier to remember.

Remember, when you switch to a top level domain, you will lose all SEO value from your old domain. If you want to test out a site before you make it final, I'd say do it on a .trap17.com subdomain before, so that you aren't using up time on a paid domain before you go live. But right when you go live, got with a top level domain!!

OK... more brainstorming sessioning then... I don't know what to call my site!!! If it was a free domain provider it will be much much much more easier because the key words won't be taken!!! Argh!!!

[TheDisturbedOne]

Any idea what your site will be called? I had no problem looking for domains. Although the keywords weren't the most popular on the web, I didn't get the ideal domain name (though I do like both of mine).

[Nameless_]

TheDisturbedOne, on Sep 18 2009, 07:55 AM, said:

Any idea what your site will be called? I had no problem looking for domains. Although the keywords weren't the most popular on the web, I didn't get the ideal domain name (though I do like both of mine).

Well, er... I was hoping to put the key words "psychic" or "psionics" in them... probably linking lots and lots and lots of free domain names onto it, and buying one top-level premium domain name (preferably with a .com extension) onto the site, which will be the actual site that google will store in their database, and the rest be just be waiting for random people trying out random names and all that and "stumble upon" my site....

Which will be really cool.

And I might start making some videos on Youtube and stuff, because you videos get viewed very quickly on Youtube, get known, and advertise my site their too!!! (The videos will be on psychic phenomena stuff, of course... Which will be really really cool....)

But yeah....

The problem isn't finding a domain name for my site that is free, the problem is finding a TOP_LEVEL premium domain name that is .com that is free (even the .net ones are taken, and I have no intention of buying any other domain extension domain names...)

Can you people give me ideas on what to call my site?

I don't know... what will you type if you were searching for psychic phenomena???

And stuff like that?

[rpgsearcherz]

If I was to look for Psychic Phonomena.. It would really depend on exactly what it is I was looking for. Are we talking about like ghosts/"other world experiences" or is it different?

I prefer to, instead of going just based on one keyword or two on searches to lock down many. I base mine on the various sections of the site rather than the site itself (or the site's name).

[TheDisturbedOne]

Also will your site be a full website, or a discussion forum or chat. As much info as possible, though what you gave is helpful.

YouTube isn't as effective as one might think. I had a video on there that had nearly 50,000 hits, and only got 3-5 hits from it per day. My current videos (about 50 now, and they average 100-500 views) barely give me any traffic.

[Nameless_]

rpgsearcherz, on Sep 19 2009, 05:28 AM, said:

If I was to look for Psychic Phonomena.. It would really depend on exactly what it is I was looking for. Are we talking about like ghosts/"other world experiences" or is it different?

I prefer to, instead of going just based on one keyword or two on searches to lock down many. I base mine on the various sections of the site rather than the site itself (or the site's name).

I am specifically talking about psychic powers directly related to ones mind. I am interested in the potential of our human brain power, and someone has coined this "psionics", though not many people know this term. So I might be using "psychic" in my domain name instead, though the competition will be higher and more hard to reach to the front page, I will (hopefully) get more traffic writing on "psionics" instead.

Also, my blog will also have things on psychology and philosophy, because I'm interested in that as well... so I can put that in the off topic section, or I can also link that to my in-topic site.

TheDisturbedOne, on Sep 19 2009, 06:09 AM, said:

Also will your site be a full website, or a discussion forum or chat. As much info as possible, though what you gave is helpful.

YouTube isn't as effective as one might think. I had a video on there that had nearly 50,000 hits, and only got 3-5 hits from it per day. My current videos (about 50 now, and they average 100-500 views) barely give me any traffic.

My site will be a blog... which MIGHT include a forum once the activity gets up, though I don't see that in the near future anytime soon at all. Um... It will have a "psionics" section, which is purely on the mind powers, how to development and information on them, it will have a "psychic" section, on the use of tools like Tarot Cards ( I don't believe in Crystals), thought it won't be a huge section of the site,

It WILL have things to do with the Paranormal, which includes Ghosts and Spirits and "haunted" places like the Bermuda Triangle, and it will have a Off-Topic Section, which isn't exactly off topic (or maybe), but it will include book reviews on psychic phenomena, my personal experiences and / or osychic diary, other psychic links and all that, and random computer stuff or the usual what-not.

And lots of subtle ads, like affliate book selling ads and stuff, google ads that blend in and all that... I need to keep up my hosting when it gets over the limit of diskspace and bandwidth.

Um... for Youtube... and least it's better than nothing...
And sidebar for ads, and maybe a feedback form so I know what to change and all that stuff.

Please brainstorm some names for me!!!

[TheDisturbedOne]

paran0rmalminds.com is available. (So that automated bots can't grab the domain before you, a "0" has been substituted for an "o") Maybe you could use that.

It looks like your site will be very extensive. Have you looked at content management systems? It will make your life much easier when you are creating your site.

I wouldn't worry much about the bandwidth and space. I am running 2 forums, 1 blog, 1 CMS and 1 test forum. I have only used -600MB of space (I could easily cut this down to 300MB, but I haven't had time to delete files) and average monthly bandwidth is around 2GB. My site has an Alexa rank in the 400,000's and has ~70 unique visitors per day. Of course if you run a graphics-heavy site, your usage will be much higher, but I wouldn't worry much about bandwidth or space. And even if you start to run low on resources, you can upgrade 5x BW and 5x space for $1.98 a month.

[rpgsearcherz]

Maybe something along the lines of psychicdevelopment.com? I'm too lazy to go try out different domains in an "availability checker" right now but I wanted to add that I'm quite interested in seeing how your site goes along. When you get it off the ground (even if it is in Alpha/Beta stage) I would definitely be interested in checking it out to see what you have come up with (more or less information wise).

Just make sure you leave Area 51 out of it. Area 51 has nothing to do with aliens. It is named that because military naming sections land off by "areas." The fact that area is "Area 51" is solely because it is between areas 50 and 52. Along with this, it is a "secret base" but it's for testing new military planes, .

[Nameless_]

TheDisturbedOne, on Sep 19 2009, 07:09 AM, said:

paran0rmalminds.com is available. (So that automated bots can't grab the domain before you, a "0" has been substituted for an "o") Maybe you could use that.

It looks like your site will be very extensive. Have you looked at content management systems? It will make your life much easier when you are creating your site.

I wouldn't worry much about the bandwidth and space. I am running 2 forums, 1 blog, 1 CMS and 1 test forum. I have only used -600MB of space (I could easily cut this down to 300MB, but I haven't had time to delete files) and average monthly bandwidth is around 2GB. My site has an Alexa rank in the 400,000's and has ~70 unique visitors per day. Of course if you run a graphics-heavy site, your usage will be much higher, but I wouldn't worry much about bandwidth or space. And even if you start to run low on resources, you can upgrade 5x BW and 5x space for $1.98 a month.

Nice one... A bit too long, perhaps?

I would like to see your sites though... looks really cool. Are they all hosted by Trap17? How do you keep up with all that posting???
Really cool though...

And oh... I never knew that automated bots can steal your domain names... Lucky I didn't type anything up yet, apart from the newstack thing, but that doesn't really matter since it's not very important right now at the moment.

[TheDisturbedOne]

The following sites I have on trap17
disturbedmb.com (disturbedmb.com fansite)
atrhq.com
elochai productions

Not all are really active. The fansite I have to update maybe once a week at the most. My project site (elochai productions) gets updated maximum once a month. The two forums aren't that hard to keep up with. One gets about 2 posts a day, the other gets about 100 posts a day.

All are hosted by trap17, and paid for with MyCENTs.

Seeing as this site is quite popular, domain snatchers might find it if it were to be posted here.

[Nameless_]

TheDisturbedOne, on Sep 19 2009, 08:00 AM, said:

The following sites I have on trap17
disturbedmb.com (disturbedmb.com fansite)
atrhq.com
elochai productions

Not all are really active. The fansite I have to update maybe once a week at the most. My project site (elochai productions) gets updated maximum once a month. The two forums aren't that hard to keep up with. One gets about 2 posts a day, the other gets about 100 posts a day.

All are hosted by trap17, and paid for with MyCENTs.

Seeing as this site is quite popular, domain snatchers might find it if it were to be posted here.

Wow... your sites are like... so cool... I thought forums take up a lot of space? SO you'll have to earn around $50 to keep them up, not to mention the domain names and the elochai productions....

I like it so much though... and I like you idea of the elochai productions... It's very cool.
Yeah... And the forums ARE active.... incredible. I've seen forums trying hard to be active and nothing works....

[TheDisturbedOne]

I have earned $51.29 to keep the sites running, and just renewed the domain yesterday.

I wrote a tutorial here to show how to get an active forum. It doesn't take that much time or effort as long as you know how to get traffic. I spent quite a while trying to get traffic one way, and in a matter of days I quadrupled my traffic by changing my method.

Thanks for the positive comments.

Edited by TheDisturbedOne, 19 September 2009 - 12:42 AM.

[mahesh2k]

Quote

I have earned $51.29 to keep the sites running, and just renewed the domain yesterday.
I wrote a tutorial here to show how to get an active forum. It doesn't take that much time or effort as long as you know how to get traffic. I spent quite a while trying to get traffic one way, and in a matter of days I quadrupled my traffic by changing my method.
Thanks for the positive comments.

You've tutorial on forum activity on t17 ? I would like to read it, if it is here. Also i want to know how you fetched more forum members. I'm very low on members on one of my technology forum. I would like to increase member count. The trouble is when i used alternate theme for my forum some of the MODS on SMF stopped working and as i've no idea of working with customizing mods. It was pain for me to edit theme from start. So i reverted back to default theme, modified for my site.

Anyway, i would like to know how to get more members for forums. If you can help in this area.

[Nameless_]

TheDisturbedOne, on Sep 19 2009, 10:41 AM, said:

I have earned $51.29 to keep the sites running, and just renewed the domain yesterday.

I wrote a tutorial here to show how to get an active forum. It doesn't take that much time or effort as long as you know how to get traffic. I spent quite a while trying to get traffic one way, and in a matter of days I quadrupled my traffic by changing my method.

Thanks for the positive comments.

Hmm??? Cool... Yeah well, I am thinking of changing hosts when my site (which isn't up yet) earns enough to get transferred to a cheap paid hosting site...

But yeah...

mahesh2k, on Sep 19 2009, 03:38 PM, said:

You've tutorial on forum activity on t17 ? I would like to read it, if it is here. Also i want to know how you fetched more forum members. I'm very low on members on one of my technology forum. I would like to increase member count. The trouble is when i used alternate theme for my forum some of the MODS on SMF stopped working and as i've no idea of working with customizing mods. It was pain for me to edit theme from start. So i reverted back to default theme, modified for my site.

Anyway, i would like to know how to get more members for forums. If you can help in this area.

Wow... mahesh2k asking for help for the first time ever? I'm surprised... though I would like to see that too... I like forums and you never know... I might actually need it one day...

[mahesh2k]

Quote

Wow... mahesh2k asking for help for the first time ever? I'm surprised... though I would like to see that too... smile.gif I like forums and you never know... I might actually need it one day...

Lol. I do ask questions. But it depends on places. Sometimes questions here on t17 go unanswered. So you gotta know where to ask which question. ;-)