Browser behavior problem not sure who to ask

[Beaglewrangler]

I'm not sure which forum I should post this question in but I'll try starting here. I have two urls for the same website: www.crosswindoutdoors.com and www.gunshackinc.com . The crosswindoutdoors url is the original main url, I have the gunshackinc url redirecting to the crosswindoutdoors.com address. When I go in via www.crosswindoutdoors.com everything works fine but when I go in via www.gunshackinc.com I get different behaviors. For example larger photos don't resize to the screen and the little favicon doesn't appear on the tab at the top of the browser. I've tried several different browsers with the same results. My quess is that it has something to do with calls made to certain files when the browser accesses the site but I have no clue how to fix it or even where to look for the answer. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[djr33]

Can you describe exactly how to see this problem? I tried (very quickly) viewing your photo gallery and both sites did the same thing for me.


It appears that your site gunshackinc.com is using a frame to bring in the content of the other domain. In other words, you only have one site, and you have a site that is nothing more than a "picture frame" in which we see the main site. There's no content there.

So, there should be no problems with this since the page inside the frame will be acting independently, but if you have something like a full window popout image, that might mean it will have problems with the frame.

The way to solve this is to remove the frame: create a 301 redirect* to the main domain and that will basically phase out the old domain but it will still (forever, unless you change something) work in the sense that it will send them to the new site. It won't preserve the sense that you have two sites, but to be honest I think that's a terrible idea: it's confusing and it's the same content, not to mention that the pages all say one name, and a different domain just seems odd then.


*If you need help with this, just ask. You'll need to use a .htaccess file and add a 301 redirect line, or you could use a serverside language like PHP. Of course you could also just create a page that has a link, or use Javascript or a meta refresh tag to move the user to the new page, but .htaccess will be the most effective.

[Beaglewrangler]

Thanks for the quick reply. I actually downsized the photos so that It worked but before I did that when I went in on the gunshack url there was a big difference scrollbars on the side and bottom etc. The only other thing I see at this point is the little favicon doesn't appear for me with the redirected url. Certainly not a big deal but I'm trying to figure out whats causing it to avoid issues in the future. If the gunshackinc url is using a frame it isn't something I did intentionally. Would that be common? I just purchased the 2nd domain name and had it point to the crosswindoutdoors.com site. I agree with you on the 2 url thing but it's kind of a result of how our business has evolved.... long story. It sounds like the 301 redirect might be the way to go but I don't know how to do it.

[djr33]

1. I noticed the favicon, and this is a little complicated. The default icon in the root (main) directory of your site will be found by some browsers, and for others you will need to include a <link> tag (like in the tutorial on this site). If you use an absolute url including the real domain name, then both sites should use that favicon, at least in most cases. Note that some browsers (especially IE) take a long time to find/use a favicon, so about 24 hours is normal, maybe even 72 in some cases. But using the full url to the favicon file should fix that problem.

2. A 301 redirect is a "permanent" redirect (that's what 301) means. If you have a host setup, you can use PHP or .htaccess to set this. Or you can even do it through the DNS. However, since you have a frame I'm guessing that you're using a free service on your hosting company to "redirect" the domain to another-- look to see if they have any other options for how this is done because this one is intended to "hide" the new URL, so, for example, you could pretend it is on your domain name but really on another (less pretty) URL like some folder on a friend's hosting account.
There are many ways to accomplish this, but the simplest will be if it can be set in your control panel for the domain name. And it doesn't need to be 301, any redirect will work-- 301 is just technically correct/best here.


One other thing you need to be aware of is that search engines won't do much with this new domain in a frame and will completely ignore it as a redirect. If you need search engines to do both, then you'll need to setup files in each. If you want only the new one (and not the old one), then you'll need to move the files to the new one and make the old one a redirect. This is a common method for moving domains.

If you have full access to your hosting configuration and DNS (even on some shared hosts) you will be able to "mirror" the two domains. On one setup I had it was called a "domain alias" within the control panel or you could use the server configuration to manually do this.
The result would be that you have one folder on your server and two possible ways to access the same content. So you'd effectively have one site acting as two.
This would make both "real" and eliminate the problems you have.
However, there are 2-3 considerations:
1. You will need to use only relative URLs. Any absolute links will move you from one site to the other. Perhaps this is ok with you, since then you'd have one main site and a mirror should anyone choose to use that domain, and for the main page of that domain but otherwise they'd end up on the other site.
2. Search engines may rank you lower for duplicating content. It may not be a big problem, but at the very least it won't help that you have two duplicate sites. (I am no expert for SEO issues, so try google if you want more info on that.)
3. Similar to the search engine issue, users might be confused and not understand why there are two. This isn't a major problem, though.