using multiple domains with the SAME store

[jdarby]

i'd like to setup our store to respond to multiple domains with IIS 6.0. i currently have 3 different domains setup and working but with one issue. when the user accesses the store from one of the domains that is NOT the original URL that was on the license, the URL in the address bar changes to the one that is in the license. is there a way to add the additional domains so that it does not change?

[jdarby]

looks like you need to buy this: http://www.ablecommerce.com/One-1-Domai ... 68C51.aspx

[nickc]

Interested to see how you deal with SSL cert in this environment.

[NC Software]

Short answer - you can't use a multi-homed IIS site with AC 7. You can certainly add all the domains you want but when a visitor arrives your license specifies the domain of your site and they will be instantly redirected. You can use multiple host headers if your license is configured as such, you may need to contact AC and open a support case. For example, I use www.nc-software.com for my main WWW site and secure.nc-software.com for the SSL portion. My license had to be modified to accommodate this. You'll also need to refer to this article:

http://bugs.ablecommerce.com/show_bug.cgi?id=8140

It is a shame as I do have product specific web sites (logbookpro.com, avcataloger.com, merchantapps.com) that I'd love to have those URL's stick but the license redirects them to the nc-software.com domain. The alternative approach is to buy additional licenses for these other domains and run separate IIS sites and have them all point to the same database but there are other issues and I didn't pursue that. Those issues are domain specific entries (site URL, SSL URL, paths, etc.).

Hope this helps.

[mazhar]

May be it helps
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=10724

[nickc]

Thanks Neal, that's exactly what I needed. I've posted before asking how to preserve session context across URL changing/entering SSL but never got a response. We have had multiple domains running against a single web site for some time - and solved all of the problems around independent UI and catalog for each domain, except checkout flow.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

The checkout flow is the sticking point here. More specifically, changing SSL/nonSSL context between domains and preserving the user session. We can accomodate multiple domains when the second level is a match (www.mystore.tld and secure.mystore.tld) but not completely different domains.

Tell me about how you want to use multi-domains. Am I right in thinking most of you want something like this?

www.myfirststore.tld => store
www.mysecondstore.tld => store
www.mythirdstore.tld => store
secure.myrealdomain.tld => checkout

Or is there anyone who expects something like this?

www.myfirststore.tld => store
secure.myfirststore.tld => checkout
www.mysecondstore.tld => store
secure.mysecondstore.tld => checkout
www.mythirdstore.tld => store
secure.mythirddomain.tld => checkout

[NC Software]

I want ANY domain pointing to the SITE. I want a specific domain pointing to checkout.

*.logbookpro.com --> site
*.avcataloger.com --> site
*.nc-software.com --> site
secure.nc-software.com --> checkout/purchase/SSL use

I want to host other things in this infrastructure such as https://schedule.logbookpro.com and use your roles/permissions/subscription system but can't with the current situation.

[nickc]

Likewise; I need the first case where all domains conflate into a single store (unless my client wants to fund the additional infrastructure required to host a separate store).

[Logan Rhodehamel]

I have created an enhancement bug for documenting this requirement.

[kastnerd]

personally I don't add the secure in front of the domain.

[jdarby]

well, what i've done so far (we haven't moved to production and fully tested yet, so this is all theoretical) is this:

In IIS 6, I've setup two websites, one for each of the domains we're running for the store. We've purchased the multi-domain license for Able and we have an SSL cert for each of the domains. Since IIS only allows for one SSL certificate per website, this is why I setup a different site for each domain.

Each site will have its SSL cert installed and both sites will point to the same AbleCommerce home directory. I think this should work. I hope this will work

[simplymatthew74]

Has anyone implemented this yet? I would love to know if anyone is using multiple domains like this?

Storefront: www.mystore1.com

Storefront: www.mystore2.com

All use one cart and checkout like below.

Checkout: checkout.mymainstore.com

Matthew Austin
www.simplydogfood.com
www.poolgeek.com

[jmestep]

We did it a little differently than the link mazhar posted above in an Able 5 store. I don't know that it wouldn't work in Able 7 since the other posts seem to point to having store pages in two different folders.
We had two license keys- one for paintball and one for other sports domain names. Both domain names could be used all the way thru the store and checkout, but we had them set to start at different places and most customers didn't know that it was the same website. Here is what we did:
Had two different top level categories paintball and other and each one had sub categories and products for those departments only.
Had two different sets of display pages, like pbproduct.aspx and axproduct.aspx and category pages. Two different sets of includes and themes also. All were in the root of the site though.
Set the products and categories to use the correct display pages.
Adjusted the category menus for each department to start at the top category for that department.
Had two copies of search pages and in the code for those pages filtered the search results based on the product/category display page for that department. For example, PBSearch.aspx had a filter where it only showed products using PBProduct.aspx display page.
We had two different sets of checkout pages which worked fine for the payment gateway. We had to redirect to one set of checkout pages later because we were using VerifiedbyVisa and the code had to have a terminal url and it wasn't working with two different sets of pages.