We all think of a website as being at one domain (website address). When you think about it however, there’s no reason that a website can’t span several domains. After all, how is a website held together? It’s held together by hyperlinks (links). You click on a link in a website’s home page and it takes you to another webpage on the website. Some links in websites take you to a completely different website at a completely different domain (website address). Once you are at another website, though, there’s no return to the first website. The second domain, owned and operated by a different person or organization, will certainly have no return links to the first website. But what if the second domain is owned and operated by the same owner-operator that operates the first domain. Then, the webpages at the second domain can look exactly like the ones at the first domain and, in fact, have links that return website visitors to the first domain. Therefore , if you control two domains (two websites , two web addresses), you can, in effect, make them into one website.

Website Visitors

What about your website visitors? Won’t they think it’s kind of strange when your webpages take them to URLs at a different domain? That’s an interesting question. The fact is that the only way website visitors know that they’re going to another domain is to read the Web address in the URL window near the top of the browser. Whoever does that? Indeed, it’s unlikely that more than five people out of a thousand would notice the URLs of the webpages that they are visiting (except for the beginning URL). Thus, you can have a website that spans two domains without anyone perceiving that it spans two domains. If you can span two, why not more? Actually, you can span as many domains as you want and few people will ever notice. Of course, you must own and operate all the domains that you span and control the webpages and links at each website.

Servers

Why would anybody span two or more domains? Well, another host ISP may offer a service (usually delivered by a specialized server) that your current host ISP does not offer.

ColdFusion Server

For instance, suppose you want to create a Web-database application using Cold Fusion.

Cold Fusion

Cold Fusion is a Web-database application-development markup language that enables people who are not programmers to create Web-database applications using HTML-like mark-ups. If you know something about databases and can use HTML, you can use Cold Fusion to create powerful Web-database applications that otherwise only a database programmer would be able to create. To use Cold Fusion Web-database applications, your host ISP has to operate a Cold Fusion server. Without the server, your Cold Fusion Web-database applications will not work. There are hundreds of host ISPs that offer Cold Fusion servers to their clientele, but there are thousands of host ISPs that do not.

Your host ISP does not have a Cold Fusion server. You are happy with your current host ISP, which has been hosting your website competently, efficiently, and inexpensively for a number of years. Therefore, you want to find a second host ISP that does offer a Cold Fusion server in order to operate your Cold Fusion Web-database application. So, you register another domain and establish a second website with a second host ISP. There you can create webpages that include your Cold Fusion Web-database application. You span your website over both domains (over both host ISPs’ servers) to create a unified website that very few people will ever notice uses different domains for different webpages.

Great Power

This has been a tiresome example. Nonetheless, it illustrates that the Web itself is a very flexible digital mechanism. What great power is at your fingertips!

If you can’t do something you want to do at one host ISP, you can find another host ISP where you can do it. And your website can span  both domains in such a way that no one is likely to notice. Each host ISP becomes a powerful building block.

Another Specialized Server

ColdFusion is just one example. There are hundreds of Web services requiring specialized servers that only a fraction of all the host ISPs provide. Any time you need to use one of these specialized services for some specialized device you are using in your website, you will have to use a host ISP that provides it. Your current ISP is not likely to be one that provides it. Thus, it’s not uncommon for websites to span more than one domain. It’s not a crazy as it sounds.

eBay

Have you ever noticed that eBay itself spans many domains? They are woven together seamlessly into one large coherent website.

Your Online Retail Business

Why in the world would you be interested in spanning more than one domain for your website? Let’s take a look at why this could be valuable to you.

eBay Store

First, consider your eBay Store. It’s where you have your ecommerce devices such as a product catalog and a check-out device. It has a unique URL that never changes so long as you maintain and pay for your eBay Store at eBay. Although technically it is not a separate website from eBay itself, as a practical matter it is a separate and unique website that belongs to you and over which you have control.

About Me

Then too, your About Me page has a unique URL that never changes so long as you are an eBay member. Although it is only one webpage, you can treat it like it is a website. There is no limit on how long the webpage can be, and you can put a lot of stuff on your About Me page that will help you in your retail business. You can consider your About Me page as a separate website owned, operated, and controlled by you, albeit it’s only one webpage.

eBay Auctions

Your eBay auctions can each be considered a separate website, for the purposes of understanding a multi-URL website. However they are webpages that only exist temporarily. Typically, an eBay auction is up for a week or at most 10 days. Then it goes into the archives for three or four weeks, and then it disappears. While it’s up, it has a unique URL and is controlled by you.

List of Auctions

There’s one thing left out of this picture thus far. That’s the eBay webpage that automatically lists all your current auctions. It’s like a catalog in and of itself. And if you are to bring your three eBay websites together into one overall website, you will want to include this webpage (as a additional website).

Overall Website

A compelling idea is to create one website for your business that spans the “websites” as described above. That way, you can:

• Use your eBay auctions to promote your eBay Store, which is a very important marketing activity.

• Use your About Me webpage generally to promote your eBay retail business.

• Use your About Me webpage to publish short tutorials. However, there’s some practical limit as to how much you can do on one webpage.

• Link to your eBay Store and to your About Me webpage from your eBay auction ads.

• Link to your eBay Store and to your eBay auction ads from your About Me webpage, although the auction links will constantly require new links for new auctions.

• Link to your About Me webpage from your eBay Store. eBay includes your auction ads in your eBay Store, so you don’t have to make those links.

By linking back and forth, you can create the appearance of having one website and of having a presence on the Web.

The sky’s the limit on what you can do here to pull all of your various eBay websites together into one overall website. If you do not have the understanding or competence with HTML that it takes to do this, take this idea to the person who does your webwork and discuss it with him or her. Pulling all these eBay elements together and using them to their maximum can create a more effective marketing machine for you than just using them the way that eBay has incorporated them into its overall system.

Portal Website

If you create an independent website where you provide content as an attractor to generate greater sales, you will need to incorporate such a website into your overall eBay website. There are some serious barriers to doing this. For instance, eBay does not allow you to link to an independent website from an eBay auction ad. Likewise, eBay does not allow you to link to an independent website from an eBay Store webpage. Nonetheless, eBay does allow you to link to an independent website from your About Me page. Thus, if you are going to incorporate a Web portal into your overall multidomain website, the linking will have to go through the About Me page. That’s somewhat of a restriction, but it does not make the concept impossible. To give you a further understanding of how this might work, you need to know something about hyperlinks.

Types of Links

There are two kinds of Web links, external (to the outside) and internal (to the inside). We are all familiar with the external links that take us from one webpage to another webpage on the same website or to another website someplace else. What is not so obvious is that you can create a link in a webpage, not to another website or another webpage, but to another place on the same webpage. By using a combination of external and internal links, you can be very creative in building a multi-domain website.

Links to the Outside

Suppose you are viewing the webpage http://chessfun.com/moves/ first.html. An HTML link to a place outside the webpage might look like this:

<a src=”http://chessfun.com/moves/advanced.html”>text</a> <a src=”http://familygames.com/chess/pieces.html”>text</a>

In the former case, the link goes to another webpage on the same website. In the latter case, the link goes to another webpage on a different website.

Links to the Inside

To create an inside link, first you need to create an anchor. Each anchor has a unique name inside the webpage. Anchors look like this when you see the HTML (but are invisible to webpage visitors):

<a name=”king”>

<a name=”queen”> <a name=”knight”>

Once you have created anchors, you can link to them from inside the same page. Suppose you are viewing the webpage http://chessfun.com/ moves/first.html, and it includes the three anchors above. A link in the webpage will take you right to one of the anchors:

<a src=”#knight”>text</a>

Once you have created anchors, you can link to them from the outside too, that is, from another webpage. Suppose you are viewing the webpage http : / /familygames .com /chess /moves /novice .html . It can include a link to the anchor named knight in the webpage http://chessfun.com/moves/first.html. The link looks like this:

<a src=”http://chessfun.com/moves/first.html#knight”>text</a> HTML is a slick system with a lot of flexibility. That’s why a working knowledge of HTML will help you understand the possibilities even if you don’t actually create webpages yourself.

Navigation Menu in About Me

This is an example of something you can do with your About Me webpage. Suppose you have an independent website where you feature content (attractors) to help generate additional sales. The home page at this website has a navigation menu. Let’s call it the Content Navigation Menu.

Next, suppose you create an anchor named menu someplace in your eBay About Me webpage. Just below that anchor you place a duplicate of the Content Navigation Menu.

Now you can have a link in an eBay auction ad or an eBay Store catalog webpage that goes directly the Content Navigation Menu (for your independent website). And it doesn’t violate eBay rules because the link actually goes to an anchor in your About Me page. This is one illustration of how you can tie together multiple domains (websites) into one overall website.

Cost-Effectiveness Review

To use this marketing technique effectively, you have to be able to create your own webpages. That is, you have to understand how to use HTML. If you don’t, you’ll have to pay a webmaster or Web developer to do this for you. Consequently, this can be very cost-effective if you have HTML skills, and it is perhaps less cost-effective if you have to hire somebody to do the work.

The real question is, What‘s the priority for creating an overall website for your eBay retail business that spans even to an independent website? I consider this a very high priority. It’s a high priority because eBay Stores do not yet have the massive retail attraction that eBay auctions do. Consequently, it is necessary for you to use eBay auctions to promote your eBay Store. Use your eBay auctions to take people to your eBay Store. Include text in your eBay auction ads that inform website visitors to visit your eBay Store and include links in such text. For this reason alone, it’s important for you to consider the spanning ideas presented in this article.

Whether it’s cost-effective to integrate a portal into your overall eBay website depends on whether the portal itself is cost-effective. If creating a portal is cost-effective and if optimizing it for the search engines is cost-effective , then it is absolutely cost-effective to incorporate it into your overall eBay website by using links from your About Me page. Perhaps one of these days, eBay will recognize the importance of having an independent website that does not sell products but rather provides content and will allow such a website to be linked directly from your eBay auction ads and your eBay Store catalog webpages.