*PLEASE HELP* How to point my 123-reg domains to my Windows Bronze hosting package?

[Will]

Hi, I've been trying to get help with a few operators on this website hosting and none of them seemed to be able to help me or know what I'm trying to ask. So can someone here please help me.

Here is the situation:

I have 2 domains (abc.COM and abc.CO.UK) with 123-reg, as well as a hosting package with them that is due to expire soon. I have opted to just renew the 2 domains but NOT the web hosting.

So today, I paid for the Windows Bronze Hosting package (£49.99) which included a free .NET domain for 1 year, so I chosed abc.NET.

I then received my Welcome e-mails with all my username and passwords, FTP, nameserver information etc...

Here is what I want to do:

I want to point the 2 domains from 123-reg (abc.COM and abc.CO.UK) to the web hosting package I just bought today with eUKhost. So that when an internet user enter "abc.COM" into their web browser, it will go to my new web hosting account's starting page.

Basically, I want all 3 domains (abc.COM, abc.CO.UK, and abc.NET) to go to the same starting page.

So I asked the operators using the LivePerson chat window.

I found out there were 2 options, transfer the 2 domains from 123-reg completely to eUKhost, or point the 2 domains to my eUKhost by changing the nameserver or something.

So I decided to go for the second option, as its free and it sounded easier. I logged into my 123-reg account and managed my domain, I saw lots of options including:

• Web forwarding
• Manage DNS
• Change Nameservers
• Manage Domain Locking
• Transfer Domain to another 123-reg user

I was then told by the eukhost operator to choose "Change Nameservers" and add these 2 nameservers: win9.eukdns.com and win10.eukdns.com.

I did that, and then he said I had to wait 24-48 hours for the web to be updated, which is fine, I understand that. He also said that's ALL I need to do.

But then he told me I also had to log into the Plesk control panel and click on "Add New Domain", I choosed "Phyical hosting" and then the options got complicated.

Anyway, I came back to give it another try later, and asked for help from another operator, who tells me to just change the nameserver, and tells me that I dont need to add new domains.

So now I'm really confused, do I need to add the 2 domains in my Plesk Control Panel or not?

And also, how will my 2 domains know where to point to by knowing the 2 new nameservers? I mean, everyone else must have using win9.eukdns.com and win10.eukdns.com, so how would they know which one is mine web hosting without the username?

Please can someone help me through and guide me to let me know what I need to do, Ive been trying all day. Thank you! Any help very much appreicated.

Will

[DavidAllen]

Best option is to create abc.com and abc.co.uk as parked domains on your abc.net domain. Then after the nameserver change with 123 reg has propogated whatever the user enters (.net, .co.uk or .com) they will go to the start page that you have setup on your new hosting for abc.net

[Will]

Hi, thanks for your reply, what do you mean by "parked", how do I parked them on my abc.net, do you mean web forwarding?

Cheers.

[DavidAllen]

Sorry, I was using the terminology from a Linux hosting environment. I think in windows you create the domain, but with no physical hosting and have it forwarded. I think

Ps do you have Plesk control panel?

[Will]

Yes I have Plesk Control Panel, in there, there is an option to "Add New Domain", and from there, I can choose 3 options, including Physical Hosting.

[DavidAllen]

It's not the physical hosting one - it's one of the others.

[eUKhost.com]

Hello Will,

Alfred was confused with the question initially as the chat was transferred from another operator to Alfred.

I have checked your comments about the chat support in the feedback section of chat and I will take steps accordingly.

As of now you need to add your other domains as "Domain Alias" from Plesk control panel and all your other domains which don't have physical hosting will show content of the main domain.

I can assure you that you wont face similar problem on livechat. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

[Will]

Thank you, I will give that a try now. I'm guessing this is Mark? Its just Ive been trying all day and no one seems to be able to help me.

[Will]

I've changed my nameserver on 123-reg to win9.eukdns.com and win10.eukdns.com, should I reverse that? And change that back? Or was that the right thing to do?

Please can you start from the beginning.

Thank you so much for your help.

[eUKhost.com]

Originally Posted by Will

I've changed my nameserver on 123-reg to win9.eukdns.com and win10.eukdns.com, should I reverse that? And change that back? Or was that the right thing to do?

Please can you start from the beginning.

Thank you so much for your help.

Hello Will,

First you need to change nameservers of your domains from 123-reg control panel and make them point to win9.eukdns.com and win10.eukdns.com. Once this has been done then login in your plesk control panel and locate the option to add "Domain Alias" which should be under "Domains" section.

Thats all you need to do and all your other domains will start showing website hosting of your main domain which has physical hosting in plesk.

[Will]

Hi there, ok, Ive changed the nameservers on 123-reg and added the 2 domains alias onto my abc.net domain in the Plesk control panel. It works now, but not properly.

When I type "www.abc.com" or "www.abc.co.uk" into my web browser, it works, it goes to my default page on www.abc.net.

However, if I type "abc.com" or "abc.co.uk", it goes back to the index.html page on my old web host (123-reg). Which I do not want.

The second problem is that the URL inside the web browser is framed, for example, if an user entered www.abc.co.uk, I want it to automatically change to www.abc.com on the user's web browser, as www.abc.com is our company's main URL. I would like the same thing if a user enters www.abc.net - to change into www.abc.com. How can I do this?

My last question is:
When I was adding a domain alias for my 2 domains from 123-reg, there were 3 tick option for "Service name", there were:

- Synchronize DNZ zone with the primary domain [X]
- Mail [ ]
- Web [ ]

Only the top one was ticked, should I take Mail and Web too? What are they for?

Sorry about the questions, I'm not experienced with web hosting side, only the programming, Flash and asp.net web application development side.

Thank you for your help again.

Will

[Rock]

Originally Posted by Will

Hi there, ok, Ive changed the nameservers on 123-reg and added the 2 domains alias onto my abc.net domain in the Plesk control panel. It works now, but not properly.

When I type "www.abc.com" or "www.abc.co.uk" into my web browser, it works, it goes to my default page on www.abc.net.

However, if I type "abc.com" or "abc.co.uk", it goes back to the index.html page on my old web host (123-reg). Which I do not want.

This is due to DNS propagation, it takes 12-24 hours for the the domain registrar end DNS changes from come into effect throughout the internet.

The second problem is that the URL inside the web browser is framed, for example, if an user entered www.abc.co.uk, I want it to automatically change to www.abc.com on the user's web browser, as www.abc.com is our company's main URL. I would like the same thing if a user enters www.abc.net - to change into www.abc.com. How can I do this?

If you need to serve several domain names that point to a web web site hosting hosted on the same or another server, you should set up domain forwarding:

1. On your Home page, click Add New Domain.
2. Specify the domain name. Leave the www check box selected if you wish to allow users to access the web site hosting by a common and habitual URL like www.your-domain.com. Having the www alias preceding the domain name will allow users to get to the web site hosting no matter what they type in their browsers: www.your-domain.com and your-domain.com will both point to the site.
3. Leave the Create domain without template option selected in the Select template menu.
4. If you have a number of IP addresses to choose from, select the required address from the Select an IP address drop-down box. Notice that e-commerce sites need a dedicated IP address (not shared among other sites) to implement Secure Sockets Layer data encryption.
5. Make sure that there is a check mark in the Proceed to hosting setup check box and click OK.
6. Choose the forwarding type: select either Frame forwarding or Standard forwarding option. With standard forwarding, a user is redirected to the web site hosting and the actual site's URL is shown in the user's browser, so the user always knows that he or she is redirected to another URL. With frame forwarding, a user is redirected to the web site hosting without knowing that the web site hosting actually resides at another location, therefore, Frame forwarding should be preferred.
7. Click OK.
8. Specify the destination URL: the current web web site hosting address that you would like this domain to point to.
9. Click OK.
10. Repeat the steps from 1 to 9 to add as many domain forwarders as required.

My last question is:
When I was adding a domain alias for my 2 domains from 123-reg, there were 3 tick option for "Service name", there were:

- Synchronize DNZ zone with the primary domain [X]
- Mail [ ]
- Web [ ]

Only the top one was ticked, should I take Mail and Web too? What are they for?

Will

1. Select the Synchronize DNS zone with the primary domain check box if you want the domain alias to use the same DNS zone resource records as in primary domain. With this setting, any subsequent changes in resource records of the primary domain's zone will be applied to the DNS zone of this domain alias.
2. Select the Mail check box, if you want e-mail directed at the e-mail addresses under the domain alias to be redirected to the e-mail addresses under your original domain name.Example: You have an e-mail address mail@yourdomain.com. You have set up an alias for your domain name, for example, alias.com. If you want to receive mail to your mailbox mail@yourdomain.com when it is sent to mail@alias.com, select the Mail check box.
3. Select the Web check box. Otherwise, the web server will not serve the web content to users coming to your web site hosting by typing the domain alias in their browsers.
4. Click OK.

Please open up a support ticket if you need us to get that done for you & explain all these things with proper instructions.

[jc8654]

Hope that's clarified everything for you. I've read through things and everything seems to have been covered. If you're still struggling, post back and I'll try and help.

[Will]

Hi, thank you for all your fast replies, I really appreciate it, I really do. Can I just ask what is a support ticket? Is it like a queue where your support team can help you fix stuff in your control panel?

What is the best way to learn more about the functions and options in Plesk control Panel? Its just all these new features are overwhelming for someone who has just come from a simple web host like 123-reg, and I've never had a dedicated windows hosting like I have now.

Also, do you know how I can use your POP3 mail box using the abc.com email address? What I mean is how do I use the POP3 server that comes with my eukhost windows bronze package with the domain from the 123-reg.

As I dont really want my users to email me at abc.net (the one that came free with my eukhost package), I would prefer them to email abc.com (the one that is with 123-reg).

Or would it be simplier to just transfer all the domains across to you?

[jc8654]

Ok Will. I'm going to try and explain things about 123-reg and eUKhost and how the things work together. Hopefully that should clear up some of your confusion.

123-reg now only deals with your domain names. All 123-reg does is has the equivalent of a big signpost that say "For domain abc.com, abc.net etc. etc. you need to go to this eUKhost server". You 'wrote' this sign when you changed the nameservers. So primarily, unless you want to move away from eUKhost, you shouldn't really have to change any settings at 123-reg.

Support tickets are basically for getting any help you need from the support team. These can be opened by email at support [@] eukhost.com or alternatively via the eukhost website hosting: http://support.eukhost.com/.

If you search for plesk user guide or something similar in google, you should be able to get some info about the things in plesk. Or on the plesk website hosting (not your control panel but the company who makes it - again use google) you can probably see a demo version which you can play about with and not worry about breaking.

On your server, I'm guessing you'll have had an email when you signed up with settings and things for your account. I am personally on Linux hosting so can't comment on the settings but I would guess that your pop server would be mail.domain.com. In plesk there will be some setting for regarding emails and setting up accounts but unfortunatley I can't get on the plesk demo to point you in the right direction.

And I would also thing re: emails that you should be able to get everything from abc.com to forward to abc.net allowing them to use either and you'll get them.

There's no need to transfer the domains as you won't see any benefit.

[Will]

Hi jc8654 and Rock, I think I kinda understand it much better, thank you once again for your detailed explanation, the sign post thing is a very good way to understand it.

Ok this is what I have at the moment, I have abc.com and abc.co.uk with 123-reg, and abc.net with you.

In my Plesk control panel, I can see that the abc.net domain is on "Physical hosting".

I removed the abc.com domain alias in order for me to add abc.com as a new domain. (abc.com is our main website hosting address, I want both abc.net and abc.co.uk to "standard" forward to this url)

I understand that 123-reg only tells the internet browsers to search for the webpage in eUKhost's nameservers.

So my question is, can I add the www.abc.com domain as a "Physical hosting"? So that I can add my .net and .co.uk domain to standard forward to it.

I understand that the .net domain that came with Windows Shared Bronze package is currently added as the "Physical hosting" domain, is there any way, I can change this round?

Also, would I be able to call one of you guys on the eukhost support telephone number in order to get some help on this?

Cheers once again!

[jc8654]

Hi Will,
I don't actually work for eUKhost so on that one, you wouldn't be able to ring me. I do think however if you contact support (via the ticketing thing I outlined before) and say you want to change your primary domain with them to abc.com rather than abc.net, they should be able to do it. It requires some changes on the server which I don't think you can do from your end. After that, you can then make the URL forwarding you need to and that should hopefully be that.

I do have msn if you want to add me on that. The address is in my profile.

Jonathan

[Will]

Ok, Ive just added my www.abc.com main domain as a "Physical hosting" in my control panel, I copied the settings of www.abc.net (the one that free came with eUKhost), except I changed the FTP username. Also I kept the disk space limit to 400MB, same as the other one.

I just tried to log on with my new username and password on my FTP program and it now seems I have two different physical hosting space, one for abc.net and one for abc.com.

So can I now delete the www.abc.net one and add it as a standard forwarding? Am I doing the right thing?

Sorry for so many questions.

Will

[jc8654]

As I say, with not having much experience of plesk, I'm half guessing on that front but from what you've said, it seems you have just set up two separate domains running independently from each other. Now I'm not sure if that's what you want or whether you wanted abc.net to forward to abc.com i.e. someone enters abc.net and automatically up on the abc.com site? If that is what you want, you want url forwarding in place.

If you are able to delete the abc.net one, that should be ok I think.

And don't worry about all the questions! It's better to ask and learn than stay in the dark.

[Rock]

Will... I hope everything is sorted out now Happy hosting !