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Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

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4 Feb 2021, 6:30 PM
#1
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Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

I have a situation where I have a main store at https://www.mainstore.com. I want to point https://www.substore.com go to a single Category in https://www.mainstore.com.

Is this something that is possible or am I asking for trouble?

4 Feb 2021, 7:57 PM
#2
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

You may be able to put a redirect in the root .htaccess of the substore.com pointing to the link to the category page on mainstore.com

You just need to decide if this is forever (301) or temporary (302)

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5 Feb 2021, 11:33 AM
#3
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

This may also be possible (assigning a redirect) via cPanel or whatever similar panel like access. The result may be as described above but performed via a different route.

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18 Mar 2021, 6:06 PM
#4
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

dbltoe:

You may be able to put a redirect in the root .htaccess of the substore.com pointing to the link to the category page on mainstore.com

You just need to decide if this is forever (301) or temporary (302)

301 generator at https://websiteadvantage.com.au/HtAccess-301-Redirect-Generator

and that generator has given me something that could work. I have to wait until I get home to test this.

Basically, I want https://www.specialURL.com to point to https://www.NormalURL.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=67

18 Mar 2021, 6:15 PM
#5
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

g2ktcf:

and that generator has given me something that could work. I have to wait until I get home to test this.

Basically, I want www.specialURL.com to point to https://www.NormalURL.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=67
I don't know if you've drunk the Google kool-aid, but you're setting yourself up for "Duplicate Content" issues.

18 Mar 2021, 6:48 PM
#6
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

oh lord, what have I missed. I know nothing about "duplicate" content...and I am now afraid to ask.

18 Mar 2021, 6:53 PM
#7
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

Basically, my wife wants to market one special product with its own url that she thinks is cute. I do not want to manage two separate businesses. Both businesses are jewerly and only differ in the material/media used.

18 Mar 2021, 6:55 PM
#8
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

g2ktcf:

oh lord, what have I missed. I know nothing about "duplicate" content...and I am now afraid to ask.
@mprough has more 'authority' in these kinds of issues, but "Duplicate content" is where Google (or Bing) dings your site's content as duplicate, i.e. same language text on multiple sites. Pages with duplicate content are down-ranked.

You can Google google duplicate content for additional information.

18 Mar 2021, 7:07 PM
#9
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

yea, I googled it right off the bat. poop. :(

18 Mar 2021, 8:12 PM
#10
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

I did run across some information that said if I do a formal 301 redirect, it will not penalize me. Does that sound correct?

18 Mar 2021, 8:28 PM
#11
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

If there is only one canonical URL you should be OK.

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18 Mar 2021, 11:06 PM
#12
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

happy wife v happy google....

tough choice!

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18 Mar 2021, 11:31 PM
#13
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

If your domain registrar lets you "forward" a domain to another URL, that's probably fine ..... IF you're okay with letting the sale of that specialty product be actually sold/shown on the real store's own domain.

eg: the "myFancyItem.com" points to the "myStore.com/url-to-product-page", and customers never actually land on "myFancyItem.com" .... their shopping and sale and branding and experience are all on "myStore.com" ... and could be upsold or will see other products on myStore

ie: "myFancyItem.com" would essentially act as a "URL Shortener" for quick access to the specific product on "myStore.com"

Point: if it's always shown and sold on "myStore.com", regardless how the visitor "got to" the page (through any forwards or url-shorteners or fancy-stuff), then you aren't likely to have any issues

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9 Aug 2021, 2:51 PM
#14
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Re: Two Sites in One (or, pointing one website to a product page on another)

I used the generator that was suggested to force https, drop www and set a 301 redirect for two different URLs to my main store URL. I created a new .htaccess file, and renamed the original .htaccess_old.

The store side seem to respond properly. However, the Admin did not. After this, every user name and password resulted in a a new login screen prompting for password and login. I immediately restored the orginal .htaccess file and everything went back to normal.

One thing that I did not mention in my previous post is how Hostmonster handles domains. I have three options for each domain. Unassigned, Parked, or Addon. How should I configure the extra two domains? I have one set right now as an Addon pointing the same folder as the main store URL. I am sure this creates duplicated content from Google (and why I am trying to fix this issue)