Can I use several domain names through mobile me ??

Tony:

Yes you can. BUT only one can use the CNAME forwarding thru MobileMe. The others must use the standard domain name forwarding which will display www.your domain_name.com/Site_Name/Pagename.html.

If you select domain name masking with the standard forwarding all you'll see in the URL field is your domainname.com. The downside to this method is that visitors can only bookmark the first page of the site. My tutorial site is setup that way: http://toadstutorials.info.

OT

Depending on how many sites you have in iWeb, you need to call them all something different, so Site 1, Site 2, Site 3 etc.

All you then do is go to your domain name registrar where you purchased your domain name and go to the web forwarding section. Select web forwarding and enable masking and then just forward to web.me.com/username/sitename. It's as simple as.

CNAME forwarding is a little more complex. For this, you need to firstly enter your domain name into your MobileMe account, so go to your MME account through System Preferences - log into it and then go to the Personal Domain Name section and enter your domain name in here.

Go to the control panel at your domain name registrar and go to the DNS settings and you then need to set a new CNAME. So the alias will be your domain name and your host will be web.me.com. It is normally something like www and @, which are your sub-domain and domain name and you then set a new CNAME and then forward both to web.me.com and then your first published site will be linked to that domain name. With this method your site will display the url http://www.domain.com/sitename/pagename, rather than just http://www.domain.com for every page with masked web forwarding.

It's not that complicated really.

Changing A names does not come into this at all.

What you need to do is go to the web forwarding section of your control panel at your domain name registrar.

Set it up so that the relevant domain name is forwarded to web.me.com/username/site1, then for the next site, forward that domain name to web.me.com/usename/site2, then site3 and so on.

You don't need to fiddle around with A names or anything like this - it is just plain and simple masked or unmasked web forwarding.

Do you have a domain name that you have registered?

If the answer to this question is yes, then you must have a domain name registrar where you can manage this?

Go to your domain name registrars website, whether this be GoDaddy or whoever you are using and you need to log in with your details. Once you have logged in there will be a section where there is something on managing domains or domain names. Click on this and there should then be an option for web forwarding. Click on web forwarding and then forward your domain name(s) to your relevant web.me.com/username/sitename.

This is all you do.

Of course you can link the domains to iWeb on an Apple server.

What you need to give them is the same thing that I have told you several times before which is either web.me.com for CNAME forwarding or web.me.com/username (MobileMe)/sitename if you are using ordinary web forwarding.

That is all they need and web.me.com is the Apple/MobileMe server that the domain needs to point to.

If this is so much hassle, why not just change and move your domain names away to somewhere like GoDaddy or HostExcellence which can cope with both CNAME and web forwarding? It is simple to do.

No, this is not what they are saying.

What they are telling you to do is use the CNAME forwarding method for all of your domains, which will not work.

What you need to do is is log in as they have told you to do and then alter the A settings to create a new CNAME and then forward the www and @ (which they have said) - this is your domain name, which is the alias and forward it to web.me.com - this is forwarded to the Apple server which will point specifically to your site as it is published to MobileMe.

I take it that you only have one MobileMe account? If you do, then you can only re-direct one domain name using the CNAME/personal domain name option ONCE for every MobileMe account. If you have more than one domain name that you want to re-direct to a MobileMe published site, then you need to use either masked or unmasked web forwarding for the others.

So ensure that the site that you want linked to your first domain name is published first and then link it using the CNAME method, as your domain registrar has explained to you - you also need to ensure that this same domain name is entered into your MobileMe account too and this will then forward to your first site.

For your other sites however, you cannot use CNAME, but you need to go to web forwarding and forward your other two domain names or however many others you have to web.me.com/username/sitename and this is how you forward your domain name specifically to your site, by entering the forward as web.me.com/username/sitename. With the CNAME it is only ever web.me.com because your domain name will then link to your first published site - the web forwarding is specific to the site if you have already used the CNAME.

If you do not know where to find the ordinary web forwarding section of your domain registrar, e-mail them and ask them or ask them to do it for you by telling them which domain names you want linked to which sites and asking them to enable the masking or not and then get them to forward to web.me.com/username/sitename.

Your only other option, if you want to use CNAME forwarding for all of your domain names is to upgrade your one MobileMe account to a Family Pack, where you get on main account and 4 sub-accounts, all of which you can use CNAME forwarding for.

Remember - you can only use CNAME forwarding ONCE for every MobileMe account - for other domains you then need to use either masked or unmasked web forwarding.