How to use parked/pointed domains?

[Unregistered]

I manage a website for a non-profit. We have 4 total domains.

1 domain is the main one. The other 3 are for some well-known projects
we run. They have no more than 1M in files, each, and generate very little
traffic. But it is nice to allow patrons to

- access a top level domain name for each small project
- have email addrs associated with each project name

We'd like to improve how these are hosted.

Currently we:

- have the one main site www.main.org
- have the 3 mini domains www.mini1.org, etc
- park the mini domains to our main site
- use DomainDirector (script) to redirect traffic to subdirectories
on the main site.

4 drawbacks (IMO) of this
a) right now we are not getting any mail (not even a catch-all addr) for
the parked domains
b) the visiting person sees a more complicated URL than necessary
if they go to www.mini1.org, they are redirected to
www.mini1.org/mini1/ (since I put the files for each mini site
in their own subdirectory of the main site to keep them from
stomping on each other)... each mini does not get its own
DOCUMENT_ROOT
c) I am not able to give out ftp access to each mini acct separately,
I only have the one main acct. Its not that I think any of the ppl
working on the mini sites would do anything malicious, but I am
worried about them stomping on things by accident.
d) Our web host restricts cgi access to cgi-bin, so each mini site
is not really self-contained in its subdirectory. Any cgi scripts
must be put in the main cgi-bin, and paths in the html code adjusted.

I see several possible ways to address several or all of these concerns
on hostforweb using some combination of parked/pointed domains, and
sub-domains, but I'd like to see what might be suggested here.

I'd like to find a way to have the mini sites URL not reflect having a subdirectory path (haven't figured out if mod_rewrite could hide that for me). Yeah, I know I could just get the $4.95 sites, but for the small space, and very low traffic, that $15/mo would be $300/yr, and we could use that $300 to send 2 more kids to camp, or buy much-needed winter clothes. Certainly willing to buy the middle or top level acct somewhere, just seems we could find a way to host these mini sites out of what we pay for the main site.

Thanks,
Mike

[mdwebhost]

For $10/month, you can get the HFW Basic plan, which includes 3 Addon Domains. With addon domains, they setup under the same cpanel, and the domain's web pages are in a subdirectory of the main domain. When a visitor goes to one of the addon domains, it DOES NOT redirect to the subdirectory, it keeps the domain they went to. You can also set up an ftp for each of the subdirectories and therefore each addon domain. You can create email accounts for the addon domains through the main account's cpanel.

[Unregistered]

That sounds exactly like what I need. Thanks for the reply!

Can someone explain what a "pointed" domain is (and how it is used, and what pros/cons it might have vs. the add-on domains?). I'm familiar with "parked", but "pointed" is new to me, and I did not see much of a definition in any of the hfw docs.

Thanks!!
Mike

[mdwebhost]

I believe the terms parked and pointed refer to the same thing. Both are one domain 'pointing' to another domain. I believe pointed domains actually redirect to the main domain, instead of keeping the other domain that was typed in.

The difference is that addon domains have their own folder, and therefore have different web pages, whereas pointed domains simply redirect to another domain.

This is the example given in the cpanel docs:
You own the business.co.nz and innovation.co.nz domain names. You already have a web site for business.co.nz, but you do not want to create a new web site for innovation.co.nz at the moment. By parking innovation.co.nz on top of business.co.nz, all URLs for innovation.co.nz will automatically go to business.co.nz instead.

[Fred G]

Exactly what mdwebhost described, parked and pointers are the same :)