[UK-CONTEST] RSGB Websites (changed subject line)

[Peter Bowyer]

On 26/06/2009, Dave Sergeant <dave at davesergeant.com> wrote:

> The proper way, provided the actual site is hosted on shared hosting,
> which most of the hosting packages are, is to modify the dns name
> servers for rsgbhfcc so they point to the relevant webspace and
> appropriate folder - doing this you always get the rsgbhfcc.org address
> in the address bar and visitors to the site know nothing whatsoever
> about vhfcc.org.

You're speaking to your grandmother about egg-sucking, Dave :-)

What you're describing is a 'cloaked redirect', which is indeed a
common way of hiding a website that's hosted on a shared service.
There's nothing in the DNS that can do this - it's implemented using a
script on the redirecting site that eats the URL and redirects off to
the destination. Some domain registration services offer this as a
feature - including being able to select the exact URL to redirect to
- which is how you are achieving this at 1&1 / easily.

It has several disadvantages, though - including (but not limited to)
triggering security alerts in browsers about cross-site scripting
attempts, breaking cookie management, and (in some implementations)
confusing the user when they see an unchanging URL in the browser bar
when they navigate around the destination site.

But this is getting a bit off-topic :-)

Peter

-- 
Peter Bowyer
Email: peter at bowyer.org
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