Domain redirect question
mylifeinfocus
Registered Users Posts: 208 Major grins
I have two domains registred with Eleven2.com. They have set up the redirect for me from my current site (www.mylifeinfocus.net) to go to my new domain (www.alicethompsonphotography.com), so that when visitors hit mylifeinfocus, they are bounced to the alicethompsonphotography.com URL. After 2 days I'm still waiting for it to propagate. Does it take longer than that, because I'm still not seeing the change. I've not yet changed it in my Smugmug Account settings > Style > Custom Domains. Do I need to do that before the change appears (and is that the correct place to make that change)?
Also, am I correct in assuming that once the redirect happens, the various galleries, etc on my site will then have "alicethompsonphotography.com" in the URL (hopefully I don't have to change those manually). In other words, will this:
http://www.mylifeinfocus.net/Architecture/Architecture/25103116_w7JTM3#!i=2163156073&k=Fk6Xgr9
automatically change to this:
http://www.alicethompsonphotography.com/Architecture/Architecture/25103116_w7JTM3#!i=2163156073&k=Fk6Xgr9
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
Alice
Also, am I correct in assuming that once the redirect happens, the various galleries, etc on my site will then have "alicethompsonphotography.com" in the URL (hopefully I don't have to change those manually). In other words, will this:
http://www.mylifeinfocus.net/Architecture/Architecture/25103116_w7JTM3#!i=2163156073&k=Fk6Xgr9
automatically change to this:
http://www.alicethompsonphotography.com/Architecture/Architecture/25103116_w7JTM3#!i=2163156073&k=Fk6Xgr9
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
Alice
0
Comments
Changing the custom domain for an established site is not something I'd recommend. It means you'd likely lose any search engine ranking you've earned over the years and search engines likely would have to re-index your site from scratch.
Since some search engines don't index content twice, it might be a while before your old domain drops from the search results and the new domain is picked up.
Then there's also the issue of any past links you've given out previously to possibly stop working or ending up on your homepage instead. Photo embeds in blogs or other pages may also stop working properly.
Depending on how the redirect from your domain host works, this may or may not happen, but it's a possibility.
If you're okay with all this and still would like to go through with the change, I'd recommend that you set up your new domain to work with SmugMug first so that it's ready for the change over. Right now it does not seem to be set up yet. Check out the DIY section here for details on what's needed for the domain to work with SmugMug.
Keep in mind that it may take 24 to 48 hours for the changes to propagate.
Once your new domain is set up, you can go about adding it to the SmugMug account settings > style > custom domain setting.
Then as the last step, you would need to revert the DNS settings from your old domain to your domain host's defaults for the forward to take any effect. That again may take 24 to 48 hours for the changes to propagate.
Again, this is not something I'd recommend for the reasons mentioned above. It would be easier to just forward your new domain to the old one and keep on using your old domain as the main domain.
SmugMug Support Hero
I appreciate your help. I'm ok with losing SEO ranking because honestly, it's been over a year since I updated my site before moving it to Smugmug. Long story short, here's what prompted the change: hackers kept hitting my site when I hosted it with another host. Then every time I'd update the site, something would break, so eventually I quit bothering with updates. (Bad idea, I know.) I wanted a more secure host and a more professional-looking site so I moved (in January I think) to Smugmug, built the new site (same "mylifeinfocus.net" domain) and I'm happy with the way it looks now, aside from some minor tweaks I'm working on. That brings me to a recent discovery of a blogger out there whose site is the same name as mine, with a very similar email address and Twitter handle. Her content is different and focuses mainly on blogging, rather than photography, but I wanted to avoid confusion and find a more professional name, so I went with my own name for the new domain. I'm currently working on changing my link with my existing social media sites. That's the back story in a nutshell.
I've had my domain host change my DNS settings to the following:
CNAME 'www' to domains.smugmug.com
A Record '@' to 208.79.45.23
I've asked that they redirect the domain "mylifeinfocus.net" to "alicethompsonphotography.com" (this will be my main site)
The host has told me they've made this change but it takes time to propagate. It's been several days.
I've attached screenshots of how things are set up at the host. (The file name of the .png is the setup for the domain in the filename - I'll include those in another post. I can only seem to attach one at a time.)
At this point, I'm so confused I don't know if I've done something wrong, or if the error is at the domain host.
When I go into the account settings > custom domain in Smugmug settings and enter www.alicethompsonphotography.com I end up getting an error that the domain doesn't exist. I included a screenshot of that also.
I'm sorry this is so long-winded, but I really appreciate any help you can provide.
Thanks in advance,
Alice
@ A (Address) = 208.79.45.23
www CNAME (Alias) = domains.smugmug.com
mylifeinfocus.net = URL redirect = alicethompsonphotography.com
For "alicethompsonphotography.com":
@ A (Address) = 208.79.45.23
www CNAME (Alias) = domains.smugmug.com
You can forward one custom domain to the other but you can't CNAME two domains to your smug site.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
I think I follow what you're saying, so if I built my new site using the "mylifeinfocus.smugmug.com" which I later changed to "mylifeinfocus.net" you're saying I can't have the "mylifeinfocus.net" be redirected to "alicethompsonphotography.com"? Or did my domain host just set up something incorrectly? Should the "alicethompsonphotography.com" domain be the only one with the CNAME?
Or how do I forward one domain to the other? Really all I want is for visitors who type in "mylifeinfocus.net" to get redirected to "alicethompsonphotography.com". I assume all the content would be still be available at the new site?
Thanks for your help. Sorry I'm so confused.
You still have a smugmug URL. http://mylifeinfocus.smugmug.com is still your site. In addition to that you can have one custom domain name. If you want that to be http://www.alicethompsonphotography.com, then you need to define the CNAME with that site.
You can forward http://www.mylifeinfocus.net to http://www.alicethompsonphotography.com. You can't have a CNAME to smug for the second site (mylifeinfocus.net). If a CNAME is defined for that site you will need to remove it.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Just to make sure I know what to do (so I don't screw it up worse):
1. I've now removed the CNAME for "mylifeinfocus" (Do I leave the redirect and A Record settings in place?)
2. I need to set the custom domain in the Smugmug account settings > Style > Custom Domains area.
Am I missing anything?
Thanks again!
And you need to set the custom domain in smugmug.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
This is what is now set for each domain:
For "mylifeinfocus.net":
mylifeinfocus.net = URL redirect = alicethompsonphotography.com
(A record and CNAME removed)
For "alicethompsonphotography.com":
@ A (Address) = 208.79.45.23
www CNAME (Alias) = domains.smugmug.com
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Domain records have a "time to live" setting (that can vary from minutes to days) - once the domain has been queried the client systems can cache the results for the TTL value (which is why domain changes can be frustratingly slow).
What you have shown in the screenshots appears to be correct - it may just be a matter of allowing the old cached records to expire.
However, a common problem with domain changes is that the domain is hosted with a previous provider, not the registrar. Many registrar systems allow changes to the domain records without highlighting the fact that the changes will never take effect unless name servers are changed back to the current registrar.
It would be worth checking that the domain is using Eleven2.com's default name servers.
If you're stuck, drop us a note via help.smugmug.com and we'll sort it out.
Barrie
Smugmug Support Hero
Spence Photography - fine art portraiture in central Scotland
Pavilion Photographic Studio - tuition - workshops - studio hire - model days in central Scotland
Thanks for your reply. This whole thing has been going on for almost a month now and I'm getting really frustrated. I've emailed Eleven2.com where my domains are registered. I asked them simply to redirect my current domain "mylifeinfocus.net" to the new one: "alicethompsonphotography.com." They said everything was working on their end. Yet I never saw the new domain working.
I contact Smugmug and they've helped to a point, but have said it's a domain issue with my domain registrar. I used to host my site at Eleven2, but in January moved it to Smugmug, redesigned the site and now I'd like to have visitors who type in "mylifeinfocus.net" get redirected to my new domain. I just sent another emaiil to Smugmug today.
The Smugmug domain settings were sent to Eleven2 and appear for the new site:
CNAME = domains.smugmug.com
A record = 208.79.45.23
The only thing now listed in the domain settings for mylifeinfocus is the redirect to alicethompsonphotography.com
At this point, I don't know what else to do. Or where the problem lies. Or who can fix it. ARRRRGH!!!!
Any help to get this worked out will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Alice