====== Domain Alias Tips ======

For your site, you may wish to set up more than one domain name that "points" to your website.  For instance you might have **example.com** and **example.net** registered that you want to use for the same site.

The **best** way to do this, is to pick what you want your main domain name to be, and make all other domain names **re-direct to the main domain**.  There are several reasons this is the best option:

  * Perhaps the most important reason, is for search engine rankings.  When you have multiple domain names that have the exact same data on them, that is considered as //duplicate content// by most search engines.  As a result, the search engine ranking((That is, how far down on search results your site is)) of your site is penalized.  By having one main domain name, and making other domains re-direct to the main one, this eliminates //duplicate content// penalties from search engines.
  * The software is optimized for working on a single domain name.  Any links in e-mails, for example, will be using the domain name you have configured in the settings in the admin panel of your software.  That same setting is also used for various links generated by the software, for instance when it is generating the sub-domain links for Geographic Navigation addon.  When the user clicks on such a link, since the domain name would change, if they are currently logged in it will cause them to log out.  It will also not look good to the end user if some parts of your site appear to be under one domain and other parts use another domain name.
  * No software license changes are needed if you use re-directs to point all alternate domains to your main domain.  If there are multiple domains but only a single installation, upon request we can add those alternate domains to your license, but we **strongly** advise against doing this for the other reasons noted above.  If you still wish to add domain aliases to your license instead of setting up re-directs, contact sales@geodesicsolutions.com to request alternates added to your domain name.  Remember the alternates must all use a single installation, if you wish to run multiple installations of the software you will need to purchase a license for each installation.

The suggestions described above are all done at the server level within your hosting account, as they are not specifically software license related. Please contact your host for instructions on how to accomplish Domain Aliasing.