Newbie-type DNS/smugmug question

amyeamye Registered Users Posts: 12 Big grins
edited November 23, 2005 in SmugMug Support
I know there's probably a really simple answer to this question, but I barely know enough of the technical jargon to even ask the question, let alone know what to do to fix it... :)

I purchased my domain through GoDaddy, and followed the smugmug instructions for pointing my domain to my smugmug site (so far so good)

And it works GREAT... when I type in the whole address (www.amyembreyphotography.com).

Can someone please help me figure out what I need to do (in beginner, newb-speak) to make it work if people only type in amyembreyphotography.com? Right now, it takes you to my temporary GoDaddy parking page.

Hope that makes sense!

Thank you!!!
amy

Comments

  • johnmayjohnmay Registered Users Posts: 2 Beginner grinner
    edited September 19, 2005
    Amy,

    You have to add a CNAME record in your DNS for just the domain name. I've never done this with GoDaddy, but try creating a blank CNAME record. Ie, do what you did before for WWW, but leave the alias name blank. See if that works.

    John
    amye wrote:
    I know there's probably a really simple answer to this question, but I barely know enough of the technical jargon to even ask the question, let alone know what to do to fix it... :)

    I purchased my domain through GoDaddy, and followed the smugmug instructions for pointing my domain to my smugmug site (so far so good)

    And it works GREAT... when I type in the whole address (www.amyembreyphotography.com).

    Can someone please help me figure out what I need to do (in beginner, newb-speak) to make it work if people only type in amyembreyphotography.com? Right now, it takes you to my temporary GoDaddy parking page.

    Hope that makes sense!

    Thank you!!!
    amy
  • amyeamye Registered Users Posts: 12 Big grins
    edited September 19, 2005
    Great! Thanks John. I'll give that a try.

    johnmay wrote:
    Amy,

    You have to add a CNAME record in your DNS for just the domain name. I've never done this with GoDaddy, but try creating a blank CNAME record. Ie, do what you did before for WWW, but leave the alias name blank. See if that works.

    John
  • amyeamye Registered Users Posts: 12 Big grins
    edited September 20, 2005
    ergh... that didn't work.

    It wouldn't let me leave the alias field blank.

    Any other ideas??? headscratch.gif
  • johnmayjohnmay Registered Users Posts: 2 Beginner grinner
    edited September 20, 2005
    The only other thing I can think of would be to have GoDaddy do a URL redirect. This means that every time someone went to your site, they would go to GoDaddy first, then get directed to SmugMug.

    FWIW, I've seen many sites that only work with the www in front. I would say 95% of the people out there will automatically put the www in front of your domain, especially if it's that way on your business cards.

    Sorry I couldn't be much more help.

    John
    amye wrote:
    ergh... that didn't work.

    It wouldn't let me leave the alias field blank.

    Any other ideas??? headscratch.gif
  • jchinjchin Registered Users Posts: 713 Major grins
    edited September 21, 2005
    [warning: a bit technical] It is quite obvious that smugmug is using a VirtualHost setting to allow for cobranded sites. What this means is that the server will read the Host tag in the HTTP request.

    In layman's terms. It can either work as www.YOURDOMAIN.com or YOURDOMAIN.com, but not both.

    In GoDaddy, you can probably setup a webpage redirect for YOURDOMAIN.com to redirect to www.YOURDOMAIN.com; and setup smugmug to work with www.YOURDOMAIN.com.

    That should solve your problem.
    Johnny J. Chin ~ J. Chin Photography
    Facebook ♦ Flickr ♦ SmugMug
    SmugMug referral coupon code: ix3uDyfBU6xXs
    (use this for a discount off your SmugMug subscription)
  • amyeamye Registered Users Posts: 12 Big grins
    edited September 21, 2005
    Ok, I think I get it-- makes sense, actually.

    I will try to work with GoDaddy and see if I can get it worked out on that end.

    I know most people probably do still type the www, but I have had a few issues with potential clients getting directed to that GoDaddy parking page. I know I tend to just type in the domain (rather than the entire address) most of the time, myself.

    Thanks to you both for your help!
    amy
  • jchinjchin Registered Users Posts: 713 Major grins
    edited September 21, 2005
    amye wrote:
    Ok, I think I get it-- makes sense, actually.

    I will try to work with GoDaddy and see if I can get it worked out on that end.

    I know most people probably do still type the www, but I have had a few issues with potential clients getting directed to that GoDaddy parking page. I know I tend to just type in the domain (rather than the entire address) most of the time, myself.

    Thanks to you both for your help!
    amy
    I totally agree with you, I support computer networks and deal with that problem all the time.

    Smugmug should allow for both incanations of the cobranding.
    Johnny J. Chin ~ J. Chin Photography
    Facebook ♦ Flickr ♦ SmugMug
    SmugMug referral coupon code: ix3uDyfBU6xXs
    (use this for a discount off your SmugMug subscription)
  • KeithHKeithH Registered Users Posts: 73 Big grins
    edited November 19, 2005
    It must have worked
    I want to do the exact same thing that Any was talking about above. I want people to reach my site with OR without the "www"

    I see that the original poster has now accomplished this because I tested it for myself.

    I'm not sure if mine is going to work. I also use godaddy. My custom URL works fine with or without the "www" in Mozilla Firefox (always has) but only works with the "www" in Internet Explorer.

    Do I use "Forwarding" through godaddy and forward to my URL with the prefix of "www"? Has anybody gotten this to work?
    smoothphoto.com
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited November 19, 2005
    KeithH wrote:
    I want to do the exact same thing that Any was talking about above. I want people to reach my site with OR without the "www"

    I see that the original poster has now accomplished this because I tested it for myself.

    I'm not sure if mine is going to work. I also use godaddy. My custom URL works fine with or without the "www" in Mozilla Firefox (always has) but only works with the "www" in Internet Explorer.

    Do I use "Forwarding" through godaddy and forward to my URL with the prefix of "www"? Has anybody gotten this to work?


    Probably with an A record alias - but beware - we can change our IP addys without notice - so don't mess up your CNAME forwarding in the process.

    custom hostname in SmugMug Help
    Andy

    Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
  • KeithHKeithH Registered Users Posts: 73 Big grins
    edited November 19, 2005
    andy wrote:
    Probably with an A record alias - but beware - we can change our IP addys without notice - so don't mess up your CNAME forwarding in the process.

    custom hostname in SmugMug Help
    Thanks Andy. So what should I do? Follow the instructions as listed by SmugMug for GoDaddy (I have). Should I not use "Forwarding"?

    If I use an A (address) Record don't I need to know the IP address of SmugMug? Is it 63.81.134.23 for now?

    Sorry. I'm easily confused.
    smoothphoto.com
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited November 19, 2005
    KeithH wrote:
    Thanks Andy. So what should I do? Follow the instructions as listed by SmugMug for GoDaddy (I have). Should I not use "Forwarding"?

    If I use an A (address) Record don't I need to know the IP address of SmugMug? Is it 63.81.134.23 for now?

    Sorry. I'm easily confused.

    You can try. We don't officially support A records, some have made it work. Remember, CNAME fowarding, as you've implemented, is the way to go. If we change our IP address (we've done that in the past) any A record forwarding will be broken.
    Andy

    Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
  • Mike LaneMike Lane Registered Users Posts: 7,106 Major grins
    edited November 19, 2005
    You shouldn't need to use an A record at all. Stick with the CNAME record and you'll be fine.

    Stripping the www won't have anything to do with the CNAME record or A record at all. On godaddy use www.smugmug.com as the site to be forwarded with the CNAME record to and in your smugmug settings use the URL that you've set up in godaddy as your forwarded URL.

    For instance I've got photos.mikelanestudios.com set to forward to www.smugmug.com and in my smugmug settings I've got photos.mikelanestudios.com set as the forwarded address.

    I don't know about godaddy, but dreamhost lets you set options for the www. part of the URL. Here's what the panel looks like in dreamhost...
    Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.

    http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited November 19, 2005
    Mike Lane wrote:
    You shouldn't need to use an A record at all. Stick with the CNAME record and you'll be fine.

    Stripping the www won't have anything to do with the CNAME record or A record at all. On godaddy use www.smugmug.com as the site to be forwarded with the CNAME record to and in your smugmug settings use the URL that you've set up in godaddy as your forwarded URL.

    For instance I've got photos.mikelanestudios.com set to forward to www.smugmug.com and in my smugmug settings I've got photos.mikelanestudios.com set as the forwarded address.

    I don't know about godaddy, but dreamhost lets you set options for the www. part of the URL. Here's what the panel looks like in dreamhost...

    Yeah - but they are trying to get

    moonriverphotography.com
    www.moonriverphotography.com

    to both work
    Andy

    Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
  • Mike LaneMike Lane Registered Users Posts: 7,106 Major grins
    edited November 19, 2005
    andy wrote:
    Yeah - but they are trying to get

    moonriverphotography.com
    www.moonriverphotography.com

    to both work
    I know, look at the image I provided (albeit this is for my blog but the same thing still applies elsewhere). You set these options elsewhere, it's got nothing to do with A records or CNAME records... In fact, you will very likely not be able to set up a CNAME and an A record at the same time.

    Added: I personally don't think that there is any good reason for Smugmug to advise anyone to use an A record unless that person's hosting company absolutely will not do cname records.
    Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.

    http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
  • KeithHKeithH Registered Users Posts: 73 Big grins
    edited November 19, 2005
    Boy! That's very clear with DreamHost. I wish GoDaddy was like that.

    Is there any hope? I wish I knew how the starter of this thread solved her problem.

    So... can anyone tell me exactly what I should try? Thanks for your help!
    smoothphoto.com
  • KeithHKeithH Registered Users Posts: 73 Big grins
    edited November 23, 2005
    It works now
    Using GoDaddy's redirection service seems to be working well with Internet Explorer now. It just took almost 48 hours, for some reason. I had it redirect from mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com

    So now people can enter my custom URL with or without the www and still get to my SmugMug site.
    smoothphoto.com
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