How to Set Up Domain Pointers

Domain Pointers and How to set them up
To increase your odds of capturing the most web shoppers, it is advantagous to host your Ecommerce Store web site(s) under multiple domain names. For users who want the option of hosting a single web site or multiple independent web sites under single or multiple domain names, the most cost effective way would be to choose a hosting plan that supports domain pointers.

Each Ecommerce Store (domain) can have its own independent web site and Shopping Cart. Domain Pointers are simply pointing domain names to subdirectories on your hosting account's web server. If for example you want to have a single Ecommerce Store under multiple domain names, then point all your domain pointers to the root director.  If you want to have five (5) independent Ecommerce Stores under individual domain names for each store, then point each domain pointer to an individual subdirectory as shown in the example below.

This example hosting plan supports one main site and four (4) domain pointers, for a total of five (5) independent Ecommerce Store web sites. The hosting account's main domain is domain1.com. The four (4) additional domain pointers are domain2 through domain5 which reside in subdirectories. Each XLEcom Ecommerce Store web site consists of an index.html file and two folders, html and images, which are placed in the domain pointer's subdirectory.

Setting Up Domain Pointers
Before you can properly configure your hosting account for using domain pointers, all your domain names must have been previously registered and the DNS servers for each domain name set to your hosting plan's DNS server. Once this is done, you can proceed in setting up the domain pointers.

To set up five (5) independent Ecommerce Store web sites as in the above example, domain1.com would be your main account's domain and the four (4) additional domains, domain2.com through domain5.com. will be set via the domain pointers.

To setup you domain pointers as in the example illustration, do the following:

Step 1
: First create the subdirectories for the domain pointers on your web server. In this case the four (4) domain pointers subdirectories would be domain2 through domain5.

Step 2: Within your hosting account's control panel, via the Domain Pointer Management section, assign the four (4) additional domain names to the domain pointer subdirectories. This would be assigning the domains domain2.com through domain5.com to the subdirectories you created in Step 1.

Step 3: Upload each of your XLEcom Ecommerce Store web sites to corresponding domain pointer's subdirectory. The folder and directory structure should look similar to the one in the example illustration.

That's it. Now you can access each of the individual Ecommerce Store web sites via their domain names, i.e. domain2.com's web site is http://www.domain2.com.

Sam Raheb
XLEcom Program Developer