Linkdomain

Article Topics: NATS Admin

What is a Linkdomain?

Linkdomains are used in NATS to let surfers join a site without appearing to leave the site they were previously on. This is useful, as Linkdomains can prevent surfers from being scared off when they are redirected to another URL when going through pages like the NATS pre-join form.

Additionally, your Linkdomain will set a cookie to track the surfer from when they click the affiliate link to when they sign up for the site they are on. This ensures that your tracking statistics will remain accurate, even if your affiliate's NATS Code gets lost from the URL during the surfing process. As a result, it is important to set the correct Linkdomain at the beginning of your tour-- otherwise, a surfer will not get tracked properly if the NATS Code is lost.

Linkdomains are Apache server aliases of your NATS domain, and you can create as many of them as you choose.

Setting Up a Linkdomain

Configuring Your Server

Please Note: This step is not necessary if your tour is on the same server as your NATS install. If your tour is on a different server, you should use the following instructions. If your tour is on the same server, skip to Adding Your Linkdomain.

Before you begin setting up a Linkdomain, you will first need to create a sub-domain of your site in DNS and point that new sub-domain at your NATS server.

For example, assume that your affiliate program domain is affiliate_program.com and the member site domain you are working with is member_site.com. In this scenario, you would need a Linkdomain -- join.member_site.com -- which will point to the same place as affiliate_program.com

If you need help setting up this step, you will need to ask your server host for assistance.

Adding Your Linkdomain

To continue configuring your new Linkdomain, you will need to edit your Apache configuration. This can either be done by you, or by your server host. In your Apache configuration, find the virtual host declaration for your NATS domain. When you have found that, add the following line to your VirtualHost section:

ServerAlias join.member_site1.com

For example:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName affiliate_program.com
  ServerAlias *.affiliate_program.com
  ServerAlias join.member_site.com
  ServerAlias join.member_site2.com
  ServerAlias join.member_site3.com
  DocumentRoot /path/to/nats/www
  <Directory /path/to/nats/www>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Once all these steps have been completed, your new Linkdmain should be configured and ready for use.

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