Sync websites.. possible?

[BLiZZaRD]

Lets say I have 3 websites, each on their own domain. If I wanted them all to be completely identical, is there a way to sync them so I onl have to update 1 of them?

I know about reidirects and pointers etc, but lets say I can use those (for any reason) All I want is to have www.mysite.com, www.theothersite.com and www.finalsite.com all be identical, but I only want to update www.mysite.com.

Is there something I can do that would allow that?

[djr33]

Setup the server to mirror it. Or use a serverside language to dynamically grab the content from a shared folder, database etc.
I don't know of an "easy" way though

[BLiZZaRD]

hmm.. mirroring.. I will look into that. Thanks Daniel.

[djr33]

Note that I'm not sure this is a default option in many/any server admin packages but it's easy enough to imagine simply using the same directory to serve multiple domains. It's possible with subdomains for example.

Don't forget that cookies will never be consistent from one domain to another and Ajax restrictions might make cross-domain l
URLs very hard to setup.

The biggest problem I see is that a single copy will use a single link pattern. Any absolute links will then bring your guests to the main site rather than staying on the mirror. You can use only relative links or use serversdr code to determine the current 'host' (domain) and generate links like that.

Search engines and bookmarking issues are also complex so for this reason rediredts are very common rather than mirroring.

[BLiZZaRD]

Ahh.. didn't think about the links. I will have to see how that is set up.

For further information, this isn't a personal thing for me, its for the place I work. They have 3 or 4 websites, but there are some local state laws saying some BS about the owner not able to have the inventory or whatever online cause the other sites are just redirects. So he is having to temporarily close them til his lawyers get done with the mess.

I was just thinking that if each site had its own content, etc then they could stay up, but the main site gets updated with images and inventory every day and would be too much of a pain to do to the 3 or 4 sites.

[traq]

If all your sites are PHP-run, (and identical) you could write a script to dynamically inset the correct domain url into your links. You would add links as #{domain}#subdirectory/file.php and have the script parse it when loading to replace it with www.domain1.com/subdirectory/file.php or www.domain2.com/subdirectory/file.php, or whatever. It might be a pain to set up (especially with existing content), but it might work best in the long run.

Of course, at this point, you might as well write a custom CMS that would submit your daily updates to all three sites automatically.

[BLiZZaRD]

Of course, at this point, you might as well write a custom CMS that would submit your daily updates to all three sites automatically.

Good idea, but I don't run the updates, they are automatically run from other applications on different websites I don't control.

It's more tricky than meets the eye. Kinda like a Transformer.

[traq]

and therein would lie the difficulty... :)

thought: depending on how the sites are set up, you may be able to use root-relative urls (" /path/to/file.php ") that would function correctly on any of the sites...? of course, you'd still have the issue of changing all the existing links.

[BLiZZaRD]

Right now there is only one site. The rest redirect to that one through pointer domains. So an edit shouldn't be too tough, as it is only the one site.

I will have to review the site and see how it is set up. Which is the entire pint of my OP. :D

[djr33]

If this is just a legal issue, I suggest just putting up a disclaimer on the main page that explains whatever (in big legal words) and dealing with it that way rather than making the web design more complex. Of course not being a lawyer I can't say that would necessarily work, but a disclaimer (written in official legal language) goes a long way in most cases.
Effectively you could make a legal notice saying that the official content is available on this other domain, so please go there, and attach a 5 second redirect or something.

[traq]

there are some local state laws saying some BS about the owner not able to have the inventory or whatever online cause the other sites are just redirects...

So, this is some kind of concern that you have the same item for sale on more than one site, and more than one person might buy it... and therefore, be ripped off because someone else already bought it?

or some similar scenario?

I'm actually a little interested in the mechanics of the problem, now. If it doesn't intrude into any sensitive info/issues, of course.

[BLiZZaRD]

Well I can tell you as much as I know, which isn't a lot.

Basically its a used car sales shop. I run the IT and internet sides of the business. Basically I am a glorified craigs list poster. But, eh, oh well.

The issue is the name of the business changed a couple years ago, they went from being a new Dodge dealer to a used car dealership.

The name of the original website (lynnwooddodge.com) has been the name of the site since the internet was made public. (About 20 years now anyway, used to just be a BBS listing of cars.) Anyway, When they changed from new to used cars, excuse me "pre-owned", the actual name of the dealership changed from lynnwood dodge to jack carroll automotive. So they added a second site, a simple pointer, called www.jackcarrollautomotive.com. After about 6 months of this, they decided that was a ***** ton to type for an address, so they purchased choosejack.com. Now they have all 3, and lynnwooddodge.com is still the main site, where the cars are listed etc.

The legal stuff is saying that since the name of the dealership is not lynnwood dodge, that they can't use that as a domain name to sell the cars. So, basically that is what they are fighting.

My idea was to instead of taking everything down and just leaving up the jackcarrollautomitive.com site until it is all situated, to make each of the sites exactly the same, so it didn't matter if you were on one of the 3, you saw the same thing. Then, depending on what the lawyers came up with for an interim decision, we could make one or another a pointer to which ever one needed to be in the URL when the site loads.

Making a mirror would be optimal, because then we wouldn't have to move everything to one or another when it is final, just remove the mirroring and make the others back into pointers.

That's basically it. There is a lot more, but of course I am not privy to that stuff.

[traq]

Glorification is good.

Honestly, if your company owns the domain name, they ought to be able to do anything they want with it - especially considering they've owned it for so long. The only issue I could imagine is if there is still a (competing?) Lynwood Dodge in existence. Well, problem solved: sell them the name! $$$!!! :p

Of course, that's all legal stuff, and out of my league. I don't think I have any better ideas for a website solution.

[BLiZZaRD]

Thats what I thought, and after doing some minor searching, the only issue I found was for doing actual sales online, which we do not do. But, like you I am no lawyer. Boss man has a group of them for just this kind of thing, so.. I don't worry about it too much. Just trying to help with the whole job security thing anyway I can. Glorified, or not :)

[djr33]

It should be very easy (though depends on hosting setup) to transfer domains so that you have 2 redirects and 1 real site, whichever configuration is desired. You could also have just an index page on the other sites saying "we've moved" if that's preferable. I see no reason at all this should be a problem, and I've also never heard of domain names having any legal standing as long as there is no copyright violation. Of course if there is another competing dealer with the other name that would be problematic.

[djr33]

I know this thread is now very old, but I wanted to mention that I just came across an option in my plesk (server control) panel for "domain aliases", doing exactly what you want.
So there's an option.

[BLiZZaRD]

Thanks Daniel. I will keep it in mind for next time, but it has been over my head for sometime and a temporary fix has already been done. Too late for "little ol me" to do anything about it.