Using Own Domain

[The Political Asylum]

Hi, I've set up a hosted forum:

http://politicalasylum.s4.bizhat.com

However, I'd like to use my own domain: http://www.politicalasylum.com as everytime I include the bizhat URL in an email to an AOL user, AOL's mail server rejects my message. Something against Bizhat I guess.

How can I go about this?

Thanks

David
The Political Asylum

[Guttu]

AOL e-mail services doesnt support redirection. Something which is necessary for this.
Copy and paste the link in the address bar
that will help

[The Political Asylum]

No you don't understand my question.

I want to map my own domain: www.thepoliticalasylum.org onto the URL of my phpbb forum which is located at: politicalasylum.s4.bizhat.com

Now I've set-up a simple redirect for my own domain so if you type it in you get taken to the forum, but there are three problems with this.

1) All the email notifications which get sent out to members (eg: alerting them to private messages, account activation etc.) include links to the bizhat URL. I want them to link to the relevant page under my domain.

Example: When you recieve a private message this is what you get:

You have received a new private message to your account on "The Political Asylum" and you have requested that you be notified on this event. You can view your new message by clicking on the following link:

http://politicalasylum.s4.bizhat.com...p?folder=inbox

I'd like this to read:

You have received a new private message to your account on "The Political Asylum" and you have requested that you be notified on this event. You can view your new message by clicking on the following link:

http://www.thepoliticalasylum.org/pr...p?folder=inbox

2) The other problem is that all the links to the various sections of the forum, eg: different threads etc. Include the original bizhat domain. I'd rather they were linked relative to my own domain for the purposes of Search Engine Optimisation and Indexing. That way if I ever decide to host my own board, all I need to do is pay for a back-up from bizhat and reconfigure, I won't loose any search engine listings.

3) It just looks neater if everything relates to your own domain.

Now in the Admin Control Panel under General Configuration there is a field "Domain Name" which currently reads bb.s4.bizhat.com. I've tried replacing this with www.thepoliticalasylum.org but it just won't save my change. So how to I configure the board to run under my own domain?

[Guttu]

I dont think this change can be done
But still try if its possible

[The Political Asylum]

I dont think this change can be done
But still try if its possible

Pity if it can't because I know for a fact that AOL are screening emails sent to their members which contain links (yes links) to bizhat.com domains. Even if they are sent from completely unrelated accounts and mail servers.

Being able to use my own domain in the messages and route any email through my own mail servers would mean I would be able to fully involve AOL members in all the features of the forum.

[norm-denver]

Hi,

I have the exact same problem.
Not only does AOL reject any email that contains a link to a subdomain of bizhat, but I suspect other providers soryt these emails as spam. At least AOL tells you why the emails are rejected: they do not like a link to a bizhat subdomain because there has been way too much abuse by bizhat members whao have spammed AOL users.

I will discuss here the options to work around (very poorly, at best) with the use of URL redirection (and the stealth/masked option for redirection), and contrast it with the only technically formal solution, consistent with the Netiquette (Internet Ethics): A DNS set up by the hosting provider (bizhat), to make the custom member domain name (or chosen subdomain) which management is formally delegated by the member to the web host (bizhat), in order to make that domain (or subdomain therof) the formal 'canonical' URL of the site.

The simplest work-around (far from a 'solution' per say), is a simple url redirect at the domain level. That way I can communicate the main address of the forum to various people without fearing being bounced or sorted as spam, unless of course I become individually known as a spammer with my personal domain, which is my own responsability. As long as I use the subdomain of bizhat, I am penalized by the lack of ethics of a few spammers who are members of bizhat.
What makes this simple is that a simple URL redirect is possible without asking Bizhat's team to do anything. I can set that up with the control center of my registrar, where I buy my domain.
Major problem: the URL of the custom domain is not what is known as a 'canonical' URL. As a result directory listings such as the ODP (dmoz.org, the defacto Yallow Pages of the Internet), which have rules about listing the canonical URL (URL of highest practical rank which the web server itself responds to), will not use my domain name. So to market and communicate our web page, we are still penalized and still cannot capitalize on our own custom domain, brand, etc.

Still in the URL redirect realm, there is an option to make the redirect 'stealthy', or 'masked'. What that means is that my registrar will serve the requested domain name in an HTML frame. This allows to customize some HTML tags in the <head></head> section of the web page (typically the tags: tiltle, description, and keywords). These allows the browser to display the title placed there, and searchg engines to take into account your keywords and description. Most importantly, it allows theoretically to mask every page's url, and replace it with the custom domain name. There are major probblems with this solution:
- sometimes the web server removes the frames (it is not the case of bizhat, as I have just tested it)
- most important:
. it masks the subdirectories and individual pages names
. it masks the full 'canonical' URL, which makes it impossible for most (or significantly harder for the web savy) to copy links within the web site to send out through emails or create links to this site from outside.
. major ethical problem: people do not know when they leave the site (say when they follow a link out from within this site). They may think you are trying to pass as some other sitr if they follow a link which is in your site and their browser still shows your custom domain name, or they think someone else site is under your responsability. Major confusion for the user. And major liability and ethical problems.
. this does not resolve in the case of bizhat's phpbb forums the email notifications being bounced off by AOL, or sorted as spam by other email providers.
The stealth/masked URL redirection is extremely seldom practical in full compliance with Internet ethics and Netiquette. It basically only works if there are no links towards other sites within our web sites. In the case of bizhat's phpbb forums, the fact that some of bizhat's members have been spamming AOL users (and others), and that phpbbs send out links to the actual canonical url (subdomain of bizhat), when sending notification emails, that we can expect that there will be links towards outside sites, make this stealth/masked url redirection option quite useless.

The only proper solution is a formal canonozation of the url with a custom domain or subdomain.

One way of doing it starts with a delegation of domain name management (or subdomain), by the user, to bizhat, using the control pannel the user may enjoy from his/her registrar (NS records). This domain or subdomain can then be managed by bizhat, in such a way the it becomes the 'canonical URL of the site. Once delegated by the member from his/her registrar's control pannel (or internally to bizhat if bizhat is the registrar), then the custom domain/subdomain can be managed by bizhat, particularly in what is known as an 'A record' in the DNS server of Bizhat to point to the appropriat web server. Perhaps this can be even simplified if the 'A record' for the custom domain/subdomain is set up by the member directly at his/her registrar's level, allowing bizhat to only focus on what follows:
A web server (http server) entry which canonizes the custom domain or subdomain as the formal web site URL. In the case of phpbb, I do not know, but I suspect there too, an entry must be made (if the option exists at all in the phpbb software, which it should, unless that can be done from the user's management control pannel: there is a domain name entry there, it may be the one to use for this purpose, I just do not know) to make sure the emails sent by the forums contain the new canonized domain/subdomain name.

This canonization of the member's custom domain/subdomain is the one solution to cover all contingencies related to how members who use a subdomain of bizhat are penalized by the few bizhat members who are spammers, allowing the other members to choose to fully function. It allows one to enjoy all the functions of the software available (including email notifications), it allows one to not have to use the very imperfect work arounds (and unethical), it allows one to not be seen as a spammer if one is not. It allows one to communicate via email unsing links to the forum without being blocked or bounced if one is not known individually as a spammer. It allows one to be able to get his site listed with his/her custom domain as the canonical url in important directory listings such as the ODP (dmoz.org), very important for search engine access. It allows one to not have to use rarely ethical and rarely practical stealth/masked URL redirects. It allows the phpbb forum users to receive all their email notifications. It is the one solution which is both technically formal (fully compatible with all Internet standards, and allowing full custom domain name features) and ethically viable as it relates to the Netiquette.

Just to say. I too would love it if this was possible at bizhat. Because of the set up involved, I would understand a one time set up fee, kind of like for banner adds removal. I sincerely hope that Bizhat becomes responsive to users who have to suffer significantly from the very bad conduct of some bizhat users who have destroyed the reputation of all bizhat subdomains by their abusive actions. I hope that bizhat team will respond to the legitimate need to enjoy one's own domain name, expect to enjoy all the domain features (Internet standards), and assume full responsibility of one's individual ethical conduct on the Internet.

Please let me know if such a solution exists.

[ProStix]

No you don't understand my question.

I want to map my own domain: www.thepoliticalasylum.org onto the URL of my phpbb forum which is located at: politicalasylum.s4.bizhat.com

Now I've set-up a simple redirect for my own domain so if you type it in you get taken to the forum, but there are three problems with this.

1) All the email notifications which get sent out to members (eg: alerting them to private messages, account activation etc.) include links to the bizhat URL. I want them to link to the relevant page under my domain.

Example: When you recieve a private message this is what you get:

You have received a new private message to your account on "The Political Asylum" and you have requested that you be notified on this event. You can view your new message by clicking on the following link:

http://politicalasylum.s4.bizhat.com...p?folder=inbox

I'd like this to read:

You have received a new private message to your account on "The Political Asylum" and you have requested that you be notified on this event. You can view your new message by clicking on the following link:

http://www.thepoliticalasylum.org/pr...p?folder=inbox

2) The other problem is that all the links to the various sections of the forum, eg: different threads etc. Include the original bizhat domain. I'd rather they were linked relative to my own domain for the purposes of Search Engine Optimisation and Indexing. That way if I ever decide to host my own board, all I need to do is pay for a back-up from bizhat and reconfigure, I won't loose any search engine listings.

3) It just looks neater if everything relates to your own domain.

Now in the Admin Control Panel under General Configuration there is a field "Domain Name" which currently reads bb.s4.bizhat.com. I've tried replacing this with www.thepoliticalasylum.org but it just won't save my change. So how to I configure the board to run under my own domain?

Do you have a cPanel account, if yes try these steps... :wink

Simply log-in to you account then...
Choose "Redirects...
Then place this URL http://politicalasylum.s4.bizhat.com/ to the page to be redirected... :D

Enjoy...

[The Political Asylum]

Do you have a cPanel account, if yes try these steps... :wink

Simply log-in to you account then...
Choose "Redirects...
Then place this URL http://politicalasylum.s4.bizhat.com/ to the page to be redirected... :D

Enjoy...

No I have a Windows web server. And the redirects in IIS don't seem to help me out.

[ProStix]

Okay, sorry but I don't think i Can help you with this one... Sorry... :(

[The Political Asylum]

Okay, sorry but I don't think i Can help you with this one... Sorry... :(

What I need (and I know full well what I need) is someone from Bizhat to make a simple entry in their web server settings so that my board is configured to respond to http requests for the host name www.thepoliticalasylum.org

I can handle my own DNS configuration. By setting a CNAME entry in my own DNS as follows:

www.thepoliticalasylum.org CNAME politicalasylum.s4.bizhat.com

If there is a Bizhat support rep out there, please get in touch. I'm happy to pay for this bit of configuration, but I can't make it happen without you!