I've owned coffeeshopdirect.com since 2001 but until recently it's only redirected to the actual location on FreeUK. Now, finally, after all of these years, the site has its own domain name! The forum is now also on the same domain.
Historically, the ACD started at 'www.abf42.dial.pipex.com/coffeeshops' in 1998 and moved to FreeUK in 2000. I was never able to (or at least figure out how to) connect coffeeshopdirect.com directly to FreeUK because the sub-directory lacked an IP address.
The forum, meanwhile, started at a localinet address in 2005 and became coffeeshopdirect.info later. Most recently it's been acdforum.site.
Hopefully this unification around coffeeshopdirect.com will be permanent because, even if it had to move to another server in the future, I can apply coffeeshopdirect.com to wherever it is actually physically located and keep the forum at coffeeshopdirect.com/forum.
I've updated lots of internal links to the correct domain and put redirect pages on FreeUK and acdforum.site so existing links and bookmarks will continue to work for the time being. Nevertheless, please update your bookmarks and links and pass the word around to any other sites you're aware of.
Domain merge
-
notsofasteddie
- Posts: 1028
- Joined: Fri 1st Jul 2011 07:05 pm
- Location: S.E. USA
Re: Domain merge
Everything is working fine for me, but the above makes me think that I might be living with a false sense of security. Will this, https://www.coffeeshopdirect.com/Map.html or this https://www.coffeeshopdirect.com/index.htm, be an appropriate link going forward?Lemming wrote: I've updated lots of internal links to the correct domain and put redirect pages on FreeUK and acdforum.site so existing links and bookmarks will continue to work for the time being. Nevertheless, please update your bookmarks and links and pass the word around to any other sites you're aware of.
Re: Domain merge
Yes, those should always work. Just update old FreeUK and acdforum.site ones.
-
Boat Drinks
- Posts: 39
- Joined: Sun 2nd Sep 2012 02:03 pm
Re: Domain merge
You are to be commended for all your efforts over the years
Re: Domain merge
notsofasteddie - I have a guess at what might be happening here. Could it be that you have bookmarks to www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/Map.html and www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/index.htm? When you click on links to those addresses, the redirection pages I've put in place will bounce them to coffeeshopdirect.com. That could be why the addresses you posted here are the new ones. If so, that's what I'm saying will only work for the time being.
If there's any chance that your bookmarks, shortcuts, links, whatever are set to freeuk addresses then they should be updated. Probably the easiest way to do this is to delete the old bookmarks and create new ones.
If there's any chance that your bookmarks, shortcuts, links, whatever are set to freeuk addresses then they should be updated. Probably the easiest way to do this is to delete the old bookmarks and create new ones.
-
notsofasteddie
- Posts: 1028
- Joined: Fri 1st Jul 2011 07:05 pm
- Location: S.E. USA
Re: Domain merge
I've been coming in through Cannabis Culture as an attempt to keep the website alive especially the Tokin Traveler's Tales sub forum as I do Amsterdam, Colorado, and Oregon there! Is there something I need to do to ensure that path?Lemming wrote:notsofasteddie - I have a guess at what might be happening here. Could it be that you have bookmarks to http://www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/Map.html and http://www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/index.htm? When you click on links to those addresses, the redirection pages I've put in place will bounce them to coffeeshopdirect.com. That could be why the addresses you posted here are the new ones. If so, that's what I'm saying will only work for the time being.
If there's any chance that your bookmarks, shortcuts, links, whatever are set to freeuk addresses then they should be updated. Probably the easiest way to do this is to delete the old bookmarks and create new ones.
Re: Domain merge
I'll attempt to explain the redirection pages:
FreeUK was a company providing dial-up internet access. I think it belongs to one of the big ISPs. At one time there were many little personal websites there with names like 'www.nigelspage.freeuk.com', 'www.cookingwithkate.freeuk.com' and so on.
The point is that all of these sites were on the same domain, i.e. freeuk.com. This means that I can't redirect the whole of freeuk.com to coffeeshopdirect.com. As far as I know, there is no simple method of redirecting coffeeshop.freeuk.com because it's not a top-level domain (if you're a techie knowing about .htaccess files and suchlike and can suggest a better method, please let me know).
To get around this problem I've created individual files to replace every page that was on the FreeUK site. Each of these special pages contains a link that automatically takes you to the page of the same name at coffeeshopdirect.com.
So, if you type 'www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/Map.html' into your browser or follow a link that goes there, you'll first load that page from FreeUK and that will then bounce you to 'www.coffeeshopdirect.com/Map.html'. In other words you'll follow a round about route to get to the new page.
Not only is following this long route rather inefficient, I also can't guarantee that it will always work. I'll do what I can to keep the FreeUK paths alive but it's always possible that FreeUK might decide that it's dead and close it down. If that happens then the old links will just produce 'Error 404: Not Found'.
That's why it's important to update the bookmarks in your browser and ask webmasters of sites linking to the ACD to update their links.
I'm aware that you've had to change your links to the forum several times before. I think it's had at least four different addresses in the past! This should be the last ever time that you need to update - honest!
Hopefully the major search engines will soon switch over to the new domain. Once they have I'll probably change the redirect pages so that they display a message for a while before taking you to the new page.
FreeUK was a company providing dial-up internet access. I think it belongs to one of the big ISPs. At one time there were many little personal websites there with names like 'www.nigelspage.freeuk.com', 'www.cookingwithkate.freeuk.com' and so on.
The point is that all of these sites were on the same domain, i.e. freeuk.com. This means that I can't redirect the whole of freeuk.com to coffeeshopdirect.com. As far as I know, there is no simple method of redirecting coffeeshop.freeuk.com because it's not a top-level domain (if you're a techie knowing about .htaccess files and suchlike and can suggest a better method, please let me know).
To get around this problem I've created individual files to replace every page that was on the FreeUK site. Each of these special pages contains a link that automatically takes you to the page of the same name at coffeeshopdirect.com.
So, if you type 'www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/Map.html' into your browser or follow a link that goes there, you'll first load that page from FreeUK and that will then bounce you to 'www.coffeeshopdirect.com/Map.html'. In other words you'll follow a round about route to get to the new page.
Not only is following this long route rather inefficient, I also can't guarantee that it will always work. I'll do what I can to keep the FreeUK paths alive but it's always possible that FreeUK might decide that it's dead and close it down. If that happens then the old links will just produce 'Error 404: Not Found'.
That's why it's important to update the bookmarks in your browser and ask webmasters of sites linking to the ACD to update their links.
I'm aware that you've had to change your links to the forum several times before. I think it's had at least four different addresses in the past! This should be the last ever time that you need to update - honest!
Hopefully the major search engines will soon switch over to the new domain. Once they have I'll probably change the redirect pages so that they display a message for a while before taking you to the new page.