Questions about domains and cloaking

Hello all!

I've got a question about the best way to have a simple URL for my wordpress blog.

Here's the scenario: I have a domain registered with go-daddy, and I have a wordpress blog installed on my dreamhost site. In order to have a pretty URL for my blog (just something simple, like www.myblog.com), I set up domain forwarding from go-daddy. From what I understand, this is essentially the same as the domain cloaking available in dreamhost: when you type www.myblog.com in the browser, the requests are forwarded to mysite.dreamhosters.com/myblog (while keeping www.myblog.com in the browser address bar).

My question is, is this the best way to have a nice pretty URL for the blog (or for any other part of my site, for that matter)? Or is there something other way to configure the domains? The only benefit of transfering the domain to dreamhost is the ability to manage it in the same way from the dreamhost panel, right?

It's really just framing one page in another, which I don't really like to do. When they mouseover links, they'll still see the real domain--plus the framing can make it hard for people to bookmark or link to certain pages.

You could add the other domain to your panel as a mirror, which would allow access under either domain name.

If the content is the same, just redirecting one to the other is a good idea... especially if you're worried about any duplicate content penalties from Google.

I would make the site at the domain you like, then just redirect the other one to it.

Also note that some (most?) directories won't accept submissions that frame another page or redirect to another page.

Thank you for your response!

Yeah, I think this is where we bump into my lack of understanding about how domain hosting works.

The only site that has actual files and stuff is this:
http://mysite.dreamhosters.com/myblog

I have a prettier domain name registered at go-daddy (http://www.mysite.com), and I do all the domain management from there. But there's no site behind that URL--that's what I'm trying to change. I'm just trying to have a pretty name for my DH site, so you don't have to type out the DH URL each time; you can just use the pretty name.

And yeah, I don't like the HTML framing thing, either. There's got to be an easier way to have a pretty URL for your site; I'm not asking for the world, here.

I have a feeling that there's something huge I'm missing.

Thanks,
Mike

If all your content is actually on http://mysite.dreamhosters.com/myblog, why don't you just "set-up" your "pretty domain" as "fully hosted" on Dreamhost, and modify the godaddy records to indicate Dreamhost's DNS servers?

Remember that there is no necessary relationship between where a domain is *registered* and where it is *hosted*; you can keep your domain registered at godaddy, but host it at DH, and have everything you indicate you want without any "cloaking" , "redirecting", "re-mapping" or other machinations.

--rlparker

Just because it's registered at Godaddy doesn't mean it has to be hosted there. You can keep the domain registered there, point the nameservers to ns1.dreamhost.com, ns2.dreamhost.com and ns3.dreamhost.com -- then add the domain to your hosting plan.

You could probably set domain.com to mirror old.domain.com, then have old.domain.com redirect to domain.com so no matter how people access it, it will be domain.com.

o_O

Yeah, suffice it to say, there's a lot I don't understand.

Based on your suggestions, I'm just going to bite the bullet and take my domains from go-daddy (and unlock them, remove the privacy, and set the nameservers as you described) and just kick off transfers to DH. Figure it's better to have them under one roof, anyway.

Incidentally, I was paying extra for a stupid privacy service that DH does for free. Names themselves are cheaper, too.

Anyway, thank you both for your help. I need to read about this more to understand how the different nameservers work... I still don't quite get it.

As others have stated, domain registration and web hosting are totally different things, and can be done with completely different companies, just like cars and roads are different things and you don't have to buy your car from the people who built the roads you drive on.

You don't need to transfer the domain registration to Dreamhost (though you can if you want to); you just need to set its DNS servers at GoDaddy to point at the Dreamhost servers, and then set up the domain as a fully hosted one on Dreamhost (mirroring the existing subdomain if you wish).

-- Dan