Can I Have My Cake And Eat It, Too? (CNAME Problem)

4 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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I have a bit of a conundrum on my hands...

I purchased a subscription to Elegant Themes, just because I like what they have to offer and also because I fell in to all the Divi 2.0 hype.

Anyways, my squeeze page is hosted on Instapage, and I have a CNAME redirect (main.mysite.com) to pageserver.instapage.com. My "Thank You" page is also a CNAME redirect from thankyou.mysite.com directed to pageserver.instapage.com.

My top domain, mysite.com, uses a 301 redirect to main.mysite.com, and that's where my conundrum lies - I want to be able to use one of the Elegant Themes Wordpress themes as the main page of my website/blog. I want the subscribers to be able to use mysite.com as the main site, yet want to use a "forced" squeeze page, also. I can't use "www" as a CNAME, because my host says it's already in use, even though it doesn't show up in the CNAME list anywhere.

Is there any way I can have my cake and eat it, too?

Thanks,
Phil

EDIT: Okay, so I just looked at the Advanced DNS Zone Editor (as opposed to the Simple DNS Zone editor), and found the "WWW" CNAME there. I guess I can use the "WWW" and do a CNAME redirect from www.mysite.com to blog.mysite.com. Or should it be directed to mysite.com/blog? Does that sound correct - before I go and screw up the whole thing?

EDIT #2: Okay, so I had to install WP to mysite.com/blog. Made a subdomain (blog.mysite.com) so that the CNAME would be a "valid zone name" for the www subdomain. Redirected the "blog.mydomain.com" to "mydomain.com/blog" so I could then use the blog.mysight.com CNAME for www.mysite.com. www.mysite.com STILL redirects to mysite.com, which in turn redirects to my squeeze page.

Help!
#cake #eat
  • Profile picture of the author PhilCarson
    Okay - problem solved!

    Apparently in cPanel there is an option for "Match WWW" in one of the redirect fields (I had to unselect it), and I guess I missed that.

    mysite.com now properly redirects to my outside url squeeze page, and www.mysite.com now redirects to my blog/website.

    On an aside, a lot of people here have had problems with HostGator. I'm not one of them. The gentleman who helped me (via LiveChat) was incredibly helpful, and I will definitely recommend them in the future.

    No, I'm not an affiliate, but have every intention of signing up with their affiliate program after today.
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  • In my opinion it is totally weird and confusing for visitors.
    Why don't you make both www.mysite.com and mysite.com redirect to your blog while some other subdomain like squeeze.mysite.com to your squeeze page?
    Most of the users don't even know what is www, what is it for and if it has to be in URL adress or not. That's why it's a good idea to keep www redirecting to your main page.
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    • Profile picture of the author PhilCarson
      That doesn't answer the question. But thank you for your input.
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    Just a minor correction. There is no thing as a "CNAME redirect". A CNAME is simply an alias for an A record. DNS has no concept of redirects.
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