DNS Point to specific page?

rsirota

Kind of off topic but here goes...

Is it possible to point one of my DNS records directly to a page?

thenickdude

Strictly, no, as DNS only handles the resolving of domain names to server addresses and is not involved in the loading a specific page.

However, what some domain providers will do is change your DNS so that your <sub>domain name points to one of *their* webservers instead. Their webserver can then serve up a redirect to a page that you specify. So, assuming that your domain provider offers this feature, you could have somesubdomain.mysite.com redirect users' browsers to http://www.someothersite.com/somepage.html, and that's the new address that will show in the browser's address bar.

Every single page in that subdomain would redirect people, so somesubdomain.mysite.com can't redirect users to a page inside the same subdomain like http://somesubdomain.mysite.com/somepage.html (as that would cause an infinite loop of redirects).

The other service that domain name providers sometimes provide is framing: You can have http://somesubdomain.mysite.com/ appear in your user's address bar while the content of the page is actually loaded from some other address, like http://www.someotherwebsite.com/somepage.html (inside a browser "frame"). However, since the address in the address bar won't change as your visitors browse around your site, it basically breaks sharing links to pages and page bookmarks. And I'm not sure, but I don't think it is compatible with SmugMug (at the very least, opening links in a new tab would cause the frame to be broken and the true address to appear in the address bar instead).

If you're using GoDaddy, both of those options are described in their help here:

http://support.godaddy.com/help/article/422/forwarding-or-masking-your-domain-name</sub>

denisegoldberg

Lamah has the technical details...
and SmugMug supports only a single custom URL for your site.

--- Denise

nine22

I just want to clarify, so if I wanted clients.mywebsite.com to point to www.mywebsite.com/clients thats not possible?

thenickdude

If your domain provider supports it, you can have them redirect visitors that enter clients.mywebsite.com to www.mywebsite.com/clients (and that's the new URL that will appear in their address bar). This isn't strictly a service provided by the DNS system, but it's a service that most domain name companies will provide for you, check out their documentation for details.

denisegoldberg

nine22 wrote: »

I just want to clarify, so if I wanted clients.mywebsite.com to point to www.mywebsite.com/clients thats not possible?

As far as I know SmugMug doesn't support that structure.

--- Denise

richpepp

You can create a page called 'Clients' (capital 'C' of course) and if your domain provider supported it then you could get redirected to www.mywebsite.com/Clients as described by Lamah

nine22

So i called network Solutions, and they were completely clueless on what I was asking. Does anyone know if they support this? If so how do you set it up?

thenickdude

It looks like the closest feature that Network Solutions offers is their "Web Forwarding" product, but it sounds like it doesn't let you redirect people from just one subdomain.

HeroOfCanton

The only way to point multiple domains or sub-domains to your SmugMug site is via forwarding (without masking, as masking creates a whole host of problems for your customers and for the administration of your site). You're welcome to forward as many domains as you want to either your SmugMug nicknamed URL or to a main domain and then point that main domain here via the A record and the CNAME.

We do our own redirection on the backend to join up your account with the custom URL, that's why you point your domain to a generic CNAME and IP address instead of your specific account. However, the way that we do things precludes the chance of pointing multiple domains or sub-domains here directly, as we only support one in your account settings.