url redirect

fatboyjim

I'm pretty much a newbie but have the following issue

I want to redirect from a another hosting package that a friend has to my own much larger package without loosing his URL/domain name in the address bar but I want to avoid using javascript and frames. This is partly because it I can't host .co.uk addresses on my host package and also seems to mess up the search engines but mainly because his host won't disable safe mode which clashes with the needs of exponent CMS

Example

His package

hisdomain.co.uk - a hosting package that only has limited the php support (they insist on using safemode which won't work with exponent)

My package

mydomain.com - lots of space and the correct php support but no facility to host .co.uk domain names

I want to forward hisdomain.co.uk to mydomain/subdirectory which contains exponent whilst avoiding using frames but retaining his URL in the address bar but have the <title> value come through from exponent

At present I'm using javascript and a frame which lets me retain the URL but stops the correct <title> coming through (have had to override with a title in the javascript). It also seems to be messing with the search engines....

rikmoncur

I'd suggest getting some decent hosting:
www.sitehq.co.uk - £25/year (+ vat) php hosting on linux with all the fandabbydozy extras.

fatboyjim

Afraid that don't help much after the fact. If I'd got to him before he bought the package I'd have told him much the same thing. I'm just trying to make the best of what's now a bad job. The hosting package looks pretty good but I'm happy with mine apart from the .co.uk stuff I get more or less what your suggested host offers as corporate for less than half the cost.

Can I warn people out there - don't use lycos.co.uk's hosting if you need to have safe mode disabled......well not unless yo can afford dedicated servers

rikmoncur

I can't really answer your question as you state it... But - couldn't you create the php pages on your server and on his site include your pages as a php include or an iframe?

bradgrafelman

rikmoncur wrote:
...and on his site include your pages as a php include...

If so, you'd have to leave the PHP files on [his] site as .txt or some extension that merely displays the PHP code (i.e. NOT the .php extension) if you want to include the code - leaving the code open for the world to see.

Sure, you could probably implement an authentication handsake protocol to ensure that his server is the one requesting the file, but all-in-all it seems sort of messy (and very unoptimized) to be grabbing PHP files from an entirely different domain all the time.

fatboyjim

My main issue is that I could use something simple like this

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN"><title>hisdomain.com</title><frameset rows="*"><frame src="http://www.mydomain.com/subdirectory" scrolling="auto"></frameset>

However I then lose both the <title> stuff that exponent gives me for each page and much more importantly my understanding is that I can also then screw up the search engines and this indeed seems to be the case.

I use exponent as it's such an easy tool for relative php newbies like me and I'm not up to much (as you can see) in the javascript department either.

What I really need is some code that will do the same job as my example but without hiding the stuff from a search engine but keeping his URL in the address bar. Not too worried about the titles I can alway try to fix that later with a php echo or something