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.

[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.