help! w/ redirection.net url cloaking

[sneedymae]

Hi.

I recently set-up a redirection account with http://www.redirection.net for my website. This service includes "path forwarding" and I've also enabled "url cloaking".

Unfortunately, things are not working as I expected.

Here's my problem...

myDomain is redirected to http://www.myHost/myName.

I can enter any address beginning http://www.myDomain directly into the address (location) bar and automagically be taken to the correct place on my website. The address bar correctly shows http://www.myDomain/whatever.

However, once at my website...

* no matter where I browse to via links on my pages, the address bar never
changes, i.e. it always shows http://www.myDomain/whatever

* when I refresh (reload) any page, I am brought back to
http://www.myDomain/whatever

* when I bookmark any page, the bookmark always points to
http://www.myDomain/whatever

So, can this behavior be "fixed", or is this just the way url cloaking "works"?

Thanks.

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sneedymae

[conkermaniac]

Originally posted by sneedymae


However, once at my website...

* no matter where I browse to via links on my pages, the address bar never
changes, i.e. it always shows http://www.myDomain/whatever

* when I refresh (reload) any page, I am brought back to
http://www.myDomain/whatever

* when I bookmark any page, the bookmark always points to
http://www.myDomain/whatever

So, can this behavior be "fixed", or is this just the way url cloaking "works"?


Hehe...that's just the way URL cloaking works. Think about it...the reason it's called URL cloaking is so that it will hide your real URL (and show the redirection URL the whole time). ;)

Since URL cloaking usually works with frames, you get the same normal problems that you have with frames, i.e. bookmarking and refreshing problems. :)

[Cracker]

Yeah, but isn't the whole point of URL cloaking so that visitors will not bookmark your real URL and so that the search engines will index your redirect URL (if you don't use cloaking, they won't index it, just the URL it redirects to)? That way, when you're forced to abruptly change free hosts (and you're an idiot and easily exploitable by the host if you think this is never going to happen), visitors won't get an error page when they go to your site. I'd hardly call that a "problem."

[conkermaniac]

I know it's intentional, Cracker, but the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. If they find one section of your site particularly useful (let's assume they're newbies here), and it was in some hard-to-find, remote location, they couldn't just bookmark it. That's the main problem I see, at least. And most search engines will not accept redirections anyway.

[sneedymae]

Originally posted by Cracker
Yeah, but isn't the whole point of URL cloaking so that visitors will not bookmark your real URL and so that the search engines will index your redirect URL

I have no interest in search engine indexing whatsoever because this is purely a family website.

As you suggest, I do not want visitors to bookmark my "real" URL; however, I do want bookmarks to include the path of the current page, e.g. http://www.myDomain/Pictures, http://www.myDomain/Links, and http://www.myDomain/Maps.

In any case, it's more important to me that the site work "normally" than it is that the "real" URL be cloaked. So I guess I'll turn-off cloaking and just use forwarding.

Thanks for your thoughts.

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sneedymae

[Cracker]

Originally posted by conkermaniac
I know it's intentional, Cracker, but the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. If they find one section of your site particularly useful (let's assume they're newbies here), and it was in some hard-to-find, remote location, they couldn't just bookmark it. That's the main problem I see, at least. And most search engines will not accept redirections anyway.

Oh yeah, then how come I've seen my cyberryan.ipfox.com URL in search engines (with the description of the site there matching the description I've provided in the META tag that ipfox.com lets you have on the cloaking frameset page)? Also, I've changed real URL's about 20 times as I've cycled through free hosts, so if I didn't use URL cloaking, those who bookmark my site would keep losing it (the whole bookmarking thing is what free hosts want you to think so that in the event that they begin limiting features as to exclude your site and say that if you want them back if you start paying them, they can exploit you that way).

[trenzterra]

sneedymae

you can get around it by putting links using target="_top" or something.

[sneedymae]

Originally posted by trenzterra
you can get around it by putting links using target="_top"

Hey! This seems to work.

Thanks for the great tip!

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sneedymae