Web Forwarding/URL behaviour

happywarmgun

One for any hardercore web people out there! I have done a website for a family member. I have used a 1&1 Business account.

He already has the Domain-name registered. He had a previous company who used to maintain the site who went bust. His business everyday IT support (email support etc) are done by a local company. They look after the domain name registration. I don't want that to change so do not want to take over the domain registration.

I have desigined the site: The other company set up webforwarding of the domain to the new site (let's call that s dtandard.newdomain.1and1.com).

So if somebody types: https://www.familydomain.com the new website now loads great. The problem is that the URL remains static in the browser at: standard.newdomain.1an1.com whist you navigate around.

So if you are browsing from the one and one URL you see, for instance,:

standard.newdomain.1and1.com/about

but if you navigate the same way using the proper domain you still see:
https://www.familydomain.com i.e. the /about doesn't show.

The site is otherwise fully functional but it is really annoying that the full navigation URL does not display in the browser on the proper domain as it is the kind of site where users may want to direct colleagues to specific pages and obviously as currently set up they cannot share the link.

What do I have to get the people who hold the registration to do in order to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

weegie.geek

You want them to change the DNS to point at the server the website's actually hosted on, or better still give you control of DNS completely.

kwikbreaks

For a site to work correctly as weegie.geek says the DNS needs to point to the server hosting it. Unfortunately it doesn't stop there though - the webserver software on the site's server needs to have been configured to support requests for familydomain.com and serve the pages from the correct directory. Most webservers host lots of websites.

So you need to check with whoever is hosting the site to find out how the server can be made to recognise your domain name and what IP the server is on so that the DNS can be configured to point to the server rather than a simple redirect as it is now.

happywarmgun

kwikbreaks wrote: »

For a site to work correctly as weegie.geek says the DNS needs to point to the server hosting it. Unfortunately it doesn't stop there though - the webserver software on the site's server needs to have been configured to support requests for familydomain.com and serve the pages from the correct directory. Most webservers host lots of websites.

So you need to check with whoever is hosting the site to find out how the server can be made to recognise your domain name and what IP the server is on so that the DNS can be configured to point to the server rather than a simple redirect as it is now.

So let me get the language right so I know what I am asking my webhosting company for - would the following question get me what I want?

"Can I have the IP of the server and any further instructions to get the right root directory so that the registrant can reconfigure the DNS to my hosting area?"

Would that make sense to the man on the other end of the phone?

kwikbreaks

Not really - I was explaining what the configuration results in rather than using the correct language to specify what is needed.

You just need to explain that you want to point the DNS at the IP address of the server and can they support that. On my own virtual server I get a control panel (Cpanel) that lets me set up the server to support multiple domains and point them to specific directories in the webspace and don't need to know exactly how it is done.

Before doing so though you need to find out if you can control the DNS as not all registrars offer that - some only do web forwarding. I use 123-reg and they do give you this ability but that doesn't help you unless you are with them or are prepared to go through the rigmarol of transferring the domain.