Hide .ning in URL after domain mapping

[Russell Rager]

Hello! Thanks in advance for your help. I am in NC and I run boonedeals.ning.com. My members know the site as BooneDeals.com. I own the domain boonedeals.com and have completed domain mapping so that when people visit boonedeals.com, they are directed to boonedeals.ning.com.

My question: How do I hide the .ning in my URL? I see many other Ning networks doing this, such as thisis50.com.

I have scoured the forum and can't find an answer. If it has already been answered and you can send me the link, I will really appreciate it.

Thanks!

[Allison Leahy]

Hi Russell, Great question! Sounds like you've already taken care of the tricky part. The last step is to add the custom domain to the network itself. Head to My Network > Tools > Domain Mapping and in the "Alternate Domain 1" field, type boonedeals.com. Then click "Save" and refresh the page. 

[Russell Rager]

Thanks Allison! You need to click the little circle next to Alternate Domain 1 as well, then click Save. Maybe worth noting that immediately after making this change, using the Android browser (but not the mobile version of my ning network because I disabled it) I was unable to access my website, receiving an error message of "Server encountered too many redirects." 30 minutes later, the problem is solved. My members now see boonedeals.com/mycontent instead of boonedeals.ning.com/mycontent. Perfect!

[Allison Leahy]

A critical step, Russell, you're absolutely right. So sorry for leaving that out of my reply. It can take some additional time for the domain to re-map to its new DNS location. Glad you're all squared away now!

[Russell Rager]

One BIG drawback to consider before doing this. After making this change, when you close the browser window you will be logged out of my network. This has already been annoying to me and is a particular pain-in-the-ass via mobile.

Anybody know a way to fix this so that a member will stay logged in until they log out?

Thanks!

[Phil McCluskey]

Hi Russell,

There isn't really a good way around it. The problem is that when you switch domains, the cookies on a member's browser that use to to determine if they are signed in are no longer accessible (because of the way cookie security operates, the browser can't look at cookies from a different domain). However, this is only a problem once, because you switched domains. After a member signs back in on the new domain, they won't be signed out again.

Thanks,
Phil

[Russell Rager]

Thanks Phil. This was not just a problem one time like you said (as in if I sign in one good time after completing the domain mapping then it will be fine from here on out).

I think, in my situation, it's because my bookmark was set to boonedeals.ning.com, which would redirect me to boonedeals.com, which would require me to login again, every time I used that bookmark.

I had the same problem with internal links on my site. After domain mapping, I would be navigating my site (logged in already as my network is closed) and be prompted to login again after clicking a link. I hypothesize that this is because many of my internal links were set to boonedeals.ning.com (instead fo the boonedeals.com that can be used after mapping). After fixing these internal links to read boonedeals.com/mydesiredpage instead of boonedeals.ning.com/mydesiredpage, the problem seems to be solved.

Does this seem accurate to you? Seems to have fixed the issue. Thanks again for your help!

[Phil McCluskey]

Hi Russell,

It's possible that because your network is mostly private, that this is complicating the redirect to internal pages and causing the extra sign in. Apologies if I gave you bad advice; glad you sorted out the issue!

Cheers,
Phil

[Russell Rager]

When you say my network is "mostly private", what do you mean? On my network people can only see the homepage without signing in.

Is there a way to make some pages open (in addition to the homepage) and leave the rest only visible to members?

Specifically, on boonedeals.ning.com I'd love to make the homepage+everything in the Deals tab public but have everything else closed to non-members. I'd love do do that but I didn't think I could.

Thanks for your help Phil!