Hello and some advice on white label set up

[Another Media]

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Hi all,

I've been a quiet observer for the last couple of years and I'm now getting my teeth firmly sunk in to AM (you may have noticed this by the random MSN adding that went on last week )

At the moment I'm focussing my efforts on the online gambling industry, a brave decision as there is a lot of competition but as you know - the rewards can be great.

I'm just about to integrate a white label into my sites and I am looking for some advice from a SEO perspective and also visitor perspective.

The white label is hosted on the providers server, giving me a URL that looks like this:

http://www.whitelabelprovider.com/stores/mysitename/

When the visitors have clicked the link to the white label it changes to look like this:

http://www.whitelabelprovidersotherU....php?item=2278 (etc)

Is there anyway of cloaking the URL so it still looks like it is coming from my site? I'm worried that the visitors will see the change in URL and simply browse straight to the white label providers site, cutting me out completely.

I'm also concerned that when people are linking to my white label they are infact linking to the white label provider and I receive no benefit from the links.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

David

PS. If I haven't added you to MSN yet please note, it's nothing personal! I'll get round to it eventually (this affiliate stuff is time consuming )

[ChrisEvans]

Do you have your own domain name?

How are you showing the site at present? Frames or just direct link?

Chris

[Another Media]

Its on my own domain. Im linking to the white label through navigation on my own site and its skinned to look like my site at the provider end so its seamless except for the URL changeover in the address bar.

David

[ChrisEvans]

If you bought another domain name, it may be possible for you to set the DNS records to point to whitelabelprovidersotherurl.com.

That would then be virtually seamless. Or alternatively, you could setup a subdomain on your site to do this.

If you can - write to your hosting provider and ask for subdomain.yourdomain.com to point to whitelabelprovidersotherurl.com via DNS (CNAME should work).

See what they say...

It may not work as it depends on how the white label site is configured, but worth a shot.

Chris

[Another Media]

Is this just the same as a redirection?

David

[ChrisEvans]

Not quite - it's more technically 'correct' and more difficult to spot who your using.

Also customers won't go to:

whitelabelprovidersotherurl.com/bla/site/

They'll go to

subdomain.maindomain.com/bla/site/

Chris

[Another Media]

Cheers Chris.

I have a reseller account so I guess they will tell me to do it myself?

I'm using WHM 10.1.0 cPanel 10.2.0-S83

I'm guessing DNS FUNCTIONS is the option to choose. Within that there are Edit Zone Templates, Park or Point a Domain, Add a DNS Zone, Edit a MX Entry, Edit a DNS Zone and Delete a DNS Zone.

Any ideas where I should be to set this up?

Thanks again,

David

[ChrisEvans]

We no longer use cPanel to provide hosting, we now use Ensim.

However, I seem to recall that resellers would do as follows:

Left hand side scroll down to Dns Functions.

Click edit a dns zone.

Select the domain from the list.

Click edit.

Then you should get a list up of domains.

Four columns I believe.

Scroll down to - add new entries below this line.

Type in the first column the sub domain you want to use, e.g.:

whitelabel

Next column, leave as is.

Column after click the drop down list.

Select CNAME.

In the column after just type whitelabelprovidersotherurl.com.

Make sure you write it:

domain.com.

With the dot on the end. I seem to recall that made a difference in cPanel but that may have changed now.

Thinking back, I think theres a fifth column too - but leave that blank.

Submit that - then wait like half hour.. and see the results.

Send me the URL in a PM if it doesn't work - I'll help you troubleshoot it.

Chris

[Another Media]

OK.

I did the above however the only thing I wasn't sure about is if I should have setup the subdomain first, before doing the above.

I'm off to bed now but I'll check it in the morning and see how it goes.

Regardless, thats a pint I owe you

David

[ChrisEvans]

I'll let you off the pint, I don't drink. :P

KitKat will do just fine.

You shouldn't need to setup the subdomain first since adding a subdomain does what we've just done effectively but doesn't use a CNAME.

Anyhow, if you have any issues at all with this. Please do send me an email:

cevans at konectinternet.com

with the subdomain and domain name. I'll then at least be able to provide some more useful info.

Chris

[ChrisEvans]

Did it work?

[Another Media]

I did try it and it took a while to propogate but went to an apache default page this morning.

In other words it didn't work.

I'm just usking a frame at the moment which I guess is fine although I might need to look into it a bit later on.

When I need it to be setup properly, I'll give you a shout if you don't mind lending a hand. I just need it working at the moment and can't wait around due to propogation times etc.

Thanks again (and your KitKat is in the post )

David

[ChrisEvans]

When you say it went to an apache page...

Did you add on the end... /stores/mysitename/

Or whatever the extension was on that?

[ChrisEvans]

So for example:

subdomain.domain.com/stores/mysitename/

If you just went here:

subdomain.domain.com

It won't work anyway.

Chris