Domain CNAME somehow messed up

Gwendys · October 30, 2006

Okay, I have totally messed up my smugmug domain forwarding. we were using the domain davehobday.com but we have now changed it to www.amberbrookephoto.com but for some reason I can't get the cname thing worked out. I thought I did it exactly the same for amberbrookephoto.com as I did for davehobday.com but for some reason it doesn't work. I did go in to godaddy and remove the cname stuff for davehobday and made davehobday forward to amberbrookephoto and then went into amberbrooke and changed the cname stuff but it still won't work. Also while changing the domain name stuff I changed the nickname on smugmug which I understand does change the domain to www.amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com. My fiancee said I made too many changes so consequently is the reason nothing works now! Help!

www.amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com
www.amberbrookephoto.com "doesn't work" :dunno

BeachBill · October 30, 2006

From DNS Report.com:

Your web site (www.amberbrookephoto.com) has a CNAME record pointing to www.amberbrookephoto.com.. That by itself is confusing, but acceptable. However, the CNAME record in this case causes an extra DNS lookup, which will slightly delay visitors to your website, and use extra bandwidth.

Explanation: your CNAME for www is not pointing to your smugmug site. You will need to fix this in godaddy's interface.

Gwendys · October 30, 2006

Hi, Thank you for your response. I did go in and change the Host to www and then the points to www.amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com so hopefully that will fix the problem. I may be just being impatient. It seemed like when I did this on the davehobday domain name it took effect within about a half hour but today it doesn't seem to be working so quickly. Hopefullly, changing the nickname through smugmug at the same time didn't cause a problem on smugmugs end. I don't know? Thank you and hopefully this will fix it. The guy at godaddy said to allow 4 to 8 hours for the change to take effect.

BeachBill wrote:

From DNS Report.com:

Your web site (www.amberbrookephoto.com) has a CNAME record pointing to www.amberbrookephoto.com.. That by itself is confusing, but acceptable. However, the CNAME record in this case causes an extra DNS lookup, which will slightly delay visitors to your website, and use extra bandwidth.

Explanation: your CNAME for www is not pointing to your smugmug site. You will need to fix this in godaddy's interface.

Andy · October 30, 2006

Gwendys wrote:

Hi, Thank you for your response. I did go in and change the Host to www and then the points to www.amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com so hopefully that will fix the problem. I may be just being impatient. It seemed like when I did this on the davehobday domain name it took effect within about a half hour but today it doesn't seem to be working so quickly. Hopefullly, changing the nickname through smugmug at the same time didn't cause a problem on smugmugs end. I don't know? Thank you and hopefully this will fix it. The guy at godaddy said to allow 4 to 8 hours for the change to take effect.

It can take 24 to 48 hours. Holler for help , help@smugmug.com if you have troubles after that time

BeachBill · October 30, 2006

I have confirmed that the change did work. DNS Report.com is now reporting:

Your web site (www.amberbrookephoto.com) has a CNAME record pointing to amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com.. That by itself is confusing, but acceptable. However, the CNAME record in this case causes an extra DNS lookup, which will slightly delay visitors to your website, and use extra bandwidth.

I was able to successfully browse to your smugmug site using www.amberbrookephoto.com so it is working now. You will however need to wait for your local ISP to update their DNS cache for your domain before you will be able to see the change. It will work fine right now for anyone who has never tried accessing your site at the new domain name.

Gwendys · October 30, 2006

Thank You Beach Bill and Andy
Hi Beach Bill and Andy, Thanks for checking on this for me. I guess my local isp did update as I am able to now get to the site just fine using either amberbrookephoto.com or www.amberbrookephoto.com . However, I guess I am a glutton for punishment, can you explain what you mean by having to go an extra DNS lookup? Is there a way I can still land at amberbrookephoto.com (and have the shopping cart work and visitors favorite galleries remembered) other than how I have it now working with the cname at godaddy? Andy says simple forwarding and masking messes up the shopping cart for visitors? Thanks for all your help! Gwen

BeachBill wrote:

I have confirmed that the change did work. DNS Report.com is now reporting:

Your web site (www.amberbrookephoto.com) has a CNAME record pointing to amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com.. That by itself is confusing, but acceptable. However, the CNAME record in this case causes an extra DNS lookup, which will slightly delay visitors to your website, and use extra bandwidth.

I was able to successfully browse to your smugmug site using www.amberbrookephoto.com so it is working now. You will however need to wait for your local ISP to update their DNS cache for your domain before you will be able to see the change. It will work fine right now for anyone who has never tried accessing your site at the new domain name.

BeachBill · October 30, 2006

Gwendys wrote:

can you explain what you mean by having to go an extra DNS lookup?

Gwen,

No worries there. A CNAME does require an extra DNS lookup, however a CNAME is designed for exactly what Smugmug is using it for, when you (Gwen) do not have control over the IP address that Smugmug will use for your site. A CNAME gives you the flexibility of using your own domain name with Smugmug.

You could use an A record, which would only require one DNS lookup, however you would need to change the A record every time Smugmug changes the IP address of your site. A CNAME eliminates the need for you to constantly monitor the IP address; any changes are picked up automatically via that second DNS lookup.

Regards,
Bill

Gwendys · October 30, 2006

Thank you and one more question!
Hi again, Okay, I understand all this (mostly). Anyway, we have the domain name davehobday.com and also the domain name thewebsmith.net and would like to forward them to amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com but when I try to simply forward them to that address they somehow go to just smugmug.com is there a way to forward other domains to the ambrookephoto.smugmug.com site and have them get there instead of just going to the smugmug.com site? Can you forward them by way of the AHost? And of course I am assuming if that is possible then when the server address got changed I would have to change it to the new server address. Thanks, Gwen

BeachBill wrote:

Gwen,

No worries there. A CNAME does require an extra DNS lookup, however a CNAME is designed for exactly what Smugmug is using it for, when you (Gwen) do not have control over the IP address that Smugmug will use for your site. A CNAME gives you the flexibility of using your own domain name with Smugmug.

You could use an A record, which would only require one DNS lookup, however you would need to change the A record every time Smugmug changes the IP address of your site. A CNAME eliminates the need for you to constantly monitor the IP address; any changes are picked up automatically via that second DNS lookup.

Regards,
Bill

Andy · October 30, 2006

Gwendys wrote:

Hi again, Okay, I understand all this (mostly). Anyway, we have the domain name davehobday.com and also the domain name thewebsmith.net and would like to forward them to amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com but when I try to simply forward them to that address they somehow go to just smugmug.com is there a way to forward other domains to the ambrookephoto.smugmug.com site and have them get there instead of just going to the smugmug.com site? Can you forward them by way of the AHost? And of course I am assuming if that is possible then when the server address got changed I would have to change it to the new server address. Thanks, Gwen

Hi Gwen,

You can forward other names to amberbrookphoto - that's the way to do it

BeachBill · October 30, 2006

Gwendys wrote:

we have the domain name davehobday.com and also the domain name thewebsmith.net and would like to forward them to amberbrookephoto.smugmug.com but when I try to simply forward them to that address they somehow go to just smugmug.com is there a way to forward other domains to the ambrookephoto.smugmug.com site and have them get there instead of just going to the smugmug.com site?

Forward them to www.amberbrookephoto.com and you will get the effect you desire.

Gwendys · October 30, 2006

Thanks BeachBill and Andy!
Thanks! I'll try to leave you alone for a while now! Gwen

BeachBill wrote:

Forward them to www.amberbrookephoto.com and you will get the effect you desire.

Domain CNAME somehow messed up

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