Moondoggy
Jan 31st, 2007, 11:51 AM
Hi,
I was wondering if anyone can explain URL redirection from the Registars point of view? Here is the situation.
Our company's IT department purchases the rights to all domain names from 1 registrar and we handle this activity on behalf of our client base. When we get a request for a new domain name the users typically want the registration for that name in the BIZ, COM, NET and ORG top level domains but they typically only use the COM domain for business.
We also manage our own external DNS zones for all domains that we own the rights to. In the past we have created a zone for each domain name so when the clients want 4 TLD's we have created 4 DNS zones and have populated each zone with records that will allow name resolutions regardless of what TLD the customers on the outside world may use. Sometimes these are host records but for the most part they are alias records that point to the corresponding .COM records IP address.
One of our concerns as managers of the external DNS is why we create 1 DNS zone for each TLD and then populate this zone with records on zones that we have really only have purchased to protect the name from domain pochers (i.e. .ORG). We were thinking that instead of setting up the zones in DNS we would simply park these zones. When I spoke with our registration company they said we could do that but as an alternative they would provide us with free URL redirection on these zones. According to what I was told this would allow anything directed at xxxxxx.org to be redirected to xxxxxxxx.com or any other domain that we own and have registered through their company.
OK, it all sounds pretty good to me but I'm an IT guy and messing around with access to our commercial business web sites is serious business that I certainly don't want to mess with if there are any potential ramifications. Since I know nothing about how URL redirection woks, I'm hoping that someone can explain how all this works from the end users perspctive (i.e. the guy who put http://www.xxxxx.org) in his browser and gets redirected). I know how DNS works but I'm fuzzy on how someone can enter www.xxxxxx.ORG in the URL field of the brower and be taken to a web server that is only setup to respond to www.yyyyy.COM. Does the redirection alter the URL in the end users browser? Does it work by redirecting any request to only 1 web page on the server or does it replace the xxxxx.org with yyyyyy.org in the URL regardless of what the end user specified as the page name (ie. www1, www2, etc)? What about email? If someone has a email address of xxxxxx@domain.com and someone specifies xxxxxx@domain.org instead will their be redirection on this or only in cases where a URL is involved?
Any help and information would be greatly appreciated.
I was wondering if anyone can explain URL redirection from the Registars point of view? Here is the situation.
Our company's IT department purchases the rights to all domain names from 1 registrar and we handle this activity on behalf of our client base. When we get a request for a new domain name the users typically want the registration for that name in the BIZ, COM, NET and ORG top level domains but they typically only use the COM domain for business.
We also manage our own external DNS zones for all domains that we own the rights to. In the past we have created a zone for each domain name so when the clients want 4 TLD's we have created 4 DNS zones and have populated each zone with records that will allow name resolutions regardless of what TLD the customers on the outside world may use. Sometimes these are host records but for the most part they are alias records that point to the corresponding .COM records IP address.
One of our concerns as managers of the external DNS is why we create 1 DNS zone for each TLD and then populate this zone with records on zones that we have really only have purchased to protect the name from domain pochers (i.e. .ORG). We were thinking that instead of setting up the zones in DNS we would simply park these zones. When I spoke with our registration company they said we could do that but as an alternative they would provide us with free URL redirection on these zones. According to what I was told this would allow anything directed at xxxxxx.org to be redirected to xxxxxxxx.com or any other domain that we own and have registered through their company.
OK, it all sounds pretty good to me but I'm an IT guy and messing around with access to our commercial business web sites is serious business that I certainly don't want to mess with if there are any potential ramifications. Since I know nothing about how URL redirection woks, I'm hoping that someone can explain how all this works from the end users perspctive (i.e. the guy who put http://www.xxxxx.org) in his browser and gets redirected). I know how DNS works but I'm fuzzy on how someone can enter www.xxxxxx.ORG in the URL field of the brower and be taken to a web server that is only setup to respond to www.yyyyy.COM. Does the redirection alter the URL in the end users browser? Does it work by redirecting any request to only 1 web page on the server or does it replace the xxxxx.org with yyyyyy.org in the URL regardless of what the end user specified as the page name (ie. www1, www2, etc)? What about email? If someone has a email address of xxxxxx@domain.com and someone specifies xxxxxx@domain.org instead will their be redirection on this or only in cases where a URL is involved?
Any help and information would be greatly appreciated.