Is xxx.domain.com and www.domain.com the same?

[Tekster]

I just looked at one of my sponsors and I have a few hits coming from xxx.mydomain.com/ It looks just like www.mydomain.com and has all my link codes and everything.

Is the adult industry going to xxx instead of www or what is going on? I am a bit confused, I though that the xxx issue did not pass.

[LowryBigwood]

Are you sure it isn't www.xxx.mydomain.com/?

[Tekster]

Check it out: http://xxx.xdame.com/ and http://www.xdame.com/

What do you think?

[NY Jester]

Tek. I think its just a sub domain for xdame.com. Because if you look at http://www.xxx.xdame.com/ its the same homepage as http://xxx.xdame.com as well as the main URL http://www.xdame.com It's someones nice marketing strategy I think.

J-

[LowryBigwood]

Looks like it's just a subdomain to me? See...

http://www.xxx.xdame.com/

[Tekster]

Well, who would set it up? I own that domain and I don't have any subdomains set up.

[NY Jester]

Hmm, now thats a mystery. Have you logged into your hosting service? Is there a sub domain there? Could your host have set it up because it is an adult site? I wouldnt really know how that could happen without you doing it or someone authorized by you.

J -

[Tekster]

Originally Posted by NY Jester

Hmm, now thats a mystery. Have you logged into your hosting service? Is there a sub domain there? Could your host have set it up because it is an adult site? I wouldnt really know how that could happen without you doing it or someone authorized by you.

J -

Loged in and checked, no subdomain is set up.

[Tekster]

Maybe cd34 can shed some light into this.

[NY Jester]

Thats very odd, I am assuming that you don't have any of your incoming links or reciprocals set to goto www.xxx.xdame.com that they all point to www.xdame.com ..And all your own codes are still intact on this xxx.domain? Thats odd. I would think if someone were trying to hi-jack you they'd replace your codes with theirs? Very strange..I've never heard of such a thing nor have I experienced it.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

J -

[LowryBigwood]

It's something to do with your hosting, not the adult passing the .xxx extensions. Those were going to replace the .coms not the www part.

Basically, it looks like the sub is just a mirror of your main site for some reason...?

[r18net]

Ok, very good chance you host has a client who has signed up with the domain as xxx.mydomain.com.
Most times a host will pick up on this and prevent it from happening, however in an automated smaller (or less observant) host example the account may be overlooked.
Have you done a ping on both addresses and determined if there is two different IP addresses. If they are the same, the two sites are hosted on the same server, if they are different there is either something in your domain config (Host Records) or there is something in cPanel DNS (if you are using it)

[r18net]

or.... you (for some reason) have wildcard DNS added to your http server config. i.e abcd.domain.com and qwer.domain.com (or anything else you can think of .domain.com) will load the same website

Update: Yes you DEFINITELY have wildcard DNS activated, i just tried http://abc.xdame.com/ and it is the same site

[LowryBigwood]

Originally Posted by r18net

Update: Yes you DEFINITELY have wildcard DNS activated, i just tried http://abc.xdame.com/ and it is the same site

Nice find.

[ClickBuster]

seems like your hosting is redirecting all nonexisting domains to www. you can put anything infront of the domain name and it would still load the main page

[NY Jester]

Good look r18..Iev heard and have been optioned to use wildcard DNS but never saw it in action. Is this a good thing?

J-

[NY Jester]

Yup for sure, I just used babes.xdame.com and it showed the main site content.

J-

[Tekster]

Originally Posted by r18net

or.... you (for some reason) have wildcard DNS added to your http server config. i.e abcd.domain.com and qwer.domain.com (or anything else you can think of .domain.com) will load the same website

Update: Yes you DEFINITELY have wildcard DNS activated, i just tried http://abc.xdame.com/ and it is the same site

Thanks for shading some light into this. I was getting a bit worried.

[Beaver Bob]

Originally Posted by NY Jester

Good look r18..Iev heard and have been optioned to use wildcard DNS but never saw it in action. Is this a good thing?

J-

I only use it for one purpose and thats for the Strongbox security software.

[r18net]

can be. I've used it before for websites (such as DKP hosting - think WoW) and with a .htaccess file could load different settings based on the subdomain called. Essentially using one install of a piece of software but loading different configs from subdomains.

As for a good thing in the sense of our type of content... Probably not, but then I could be wrong. Your content 'could' be classed as duplicate, and as such could suffer a penalty in SEs (or even flagged as copied).

But it 'could' also be used (in conjuction with htaccess or smart coding) to deliver different content. For example, I am playing with the idea of seperating out my TGP/MGP by using wildcard DNS.
babes.mysite.com will open www.mysite.com/babes.html (or PHP) but to the end user they will still be on babes.mysite.com

Lots of stuff you can use with this, but just be aware if you are on shared or reseller hosting (and your host is an ass) you will find they will be reluctant to change the one line of code in the httpd.conf file for your domain.
VPS and Dedicated ppl, the changes are made in httpd.conf (might want to do a search for yourself where your copy is), and effectively do the following:

Find mysite.com in httpd.conf

Should look something like this:
<virtualhost 1.2.3.4>
Serveralias mysite.com
***** BLAH BLAH BLAH *****
</virtualhost>

And change the ServerAlias line to read this:
ServerAlias *.mysite.com mysite.com

Save the changes, exit the editor, then
service httpd restart

You should now be able to use 1.mysite.com, 2.mysite.com, etc. etc.

Oh and getting the subdomain when someone hits your site in PHP would look something like this:

<?php
$serverhost = explode('.',$_SERVER["HTTP_HOST"]);
$sub = $serverhost[0];
if ($sub = "www") {
$sub = "";
}
?>

There is your lengthy, and comprehensive answer for this sometimes awesome apache modification.

[cd34]

Another possible reason to use wildcards would be to avoid IE's 2 socket connection limit when hitting web sites. Briefly, IE will put 2 image requests to a hostname, and queue up the rest to be fetched as the 4 requests complete. If you use multiple hostnames, i.e. img1.domain.com, img2.domain.com, img3.domain.com, IE will request 4 connections per hostname -- even though the requests are being handled by the same server.

http://www.die.net/musings/page_load_time/

[r18net]

well... it seems I never thought of that one, but it definitely makes sense. I might give that one a go sometime, could be handy of TGP/MGPs with loads of thumbs

[NY Jester]

All very useful information. Definitely shed some light on a subject I didnt understand or know the dynamics of. Thanks.

J-

[Sleep[Walker]]

I believe this is not good for SEO. Search Engines can interpret such subdomains as duplicate content and you'll receive penalties. Turn that option off or use redirects to your main site when someone enters a subdomain.