At some stage I bet you’ve thought, “I wish this URL had my club’s name incorporated into it” or “I wish it could be shorter so I can promote it to our members more easily”.
For example, your website, much like the Geelong and District Football League’s website URL, might look something like this: http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=1-6162-0-0-0&sID=89315.
Just imagine if it could be promoted using www.gdfl.sportingpulse.net instead.
Well, your prayers have been answered!! We’re pleased to be able to offer this functionality in the next phase of our network website upgrades that will be released on February 9th. And best of all, it’s completely FREE!
When the changes do get implemented (and don’t worry, we’ll notify you know once this has occurred!), here is some good info to help you on your way…
Assigning a domain name to your site
Once logged in as a website editor into the Site Administration Control Panel (i.e. the “back-end”) of your website, there will be a new icon called “Assign a Domain Name”.
The Assign a Domain Name screen will allow editors to select a domain they would like to use (subject to availability) in order to customise it for your own association or club, and assign that domain to the site – it’s that simple!
What domains will be available?
At this stage you’ll be able to assign a domain name with the .sportingpulse.net extension, where you’ll be able to select the prefix (e.g. gdfl from the example above) for your domain.
Note: Some sports already offer their own sport-specific domain names – e.g. leaguenet.com.au (RubgyLeague), ridenet.com.au (Motorcycling) etc. We encourage you to contact your sport’s governing body to find out more information about any such domains that may be available.
Want to use your own domain name?
Of course, clubs, leagues and associations are still able to purchase and register their own domain names (e.g. www.vfl.com.au) and point these domain names to their SportingPulse site.
Domain names are relatively inexpensive, typically costing less than $50 per year, and can be purchased from many companies on the internet. We recommend using Netregistry, who offer several types of domain names including those ending in .com, .com.au, org.au, .net.au and lots more.
If you do elect to purchase your own domain name, you will need to redirect this domain name to your SportingPulse site - simply follow these instructions from the SportingPulse SupportWiki for how this can be undertaken.
We look forward to the release of this new functionality, as well as the other upgrades scheduled to be released later this month, and we hope many associations, leagues and clubs will see value in this.
As always, please feel free to comment on this blog post below or through our other communication channels such as our Facebook and Twitter pages, or you can always Contact Us for more info. We welcome the feedback…
best improvement yet.
ReplyDeleteyeah it will be... when it actually happens! I've logged in everyday since this post waiting to register our SPulse domain name. We registered a full domain name ages ago and weren't happy that all it does it redirect to the SPulse page. How's that meant to help with SEO and rankings?? But this new option will help a lot - if it does ever happen.
ReplyDeleteHa - yes, its coming and glad there's a stir that its not yet live.
ReplyDeleteThe goal wasn't to improve SEO in this instance (Search Engine Optimisation), although it is probable that searching for a league or club name in Google will return a higher ranking through this.
Our goal was to provide any club or league the opportunity to have a simple URL to promote if they don't want to go to the expense and time purchasing their own.
The URL will still redirect into the network site, as its where the results & stats are integrated.
Cheers, Andrew
Andrew, when will this happen? I still can't see that new icon.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering whether this functionality might extend to creating/maintaining multiple mailboxes and if so what naming convention the mailboxes might take (e.g president@gdfl.sportingpulse.net) Our existing host server provides 5-6 mailboxes of which we actively use 3-4.
ReplyDeleteAdministrator people (Andrew?) - wondering if you can please give an update as to when this will happen. We have communications awaiting a new leaner domain name and would love to be advertising/emailing people etc with the link....
ReplyDeleteG'day - its scheduled for early next week - hoping for the 9th. We'll send out comms and update the blog here.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Andrew
Is there a way to check availability of a particular domain name within this function before allocating one?
ReplyDeleteJust tried it then. works a treat.
ReplyDeletehi,
ReplyDeleteno - at this stage the database runs a check and then allocates the domain if its available.
cheers, andrew
Hi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteJust tried to register bankstownbasketball, but I get an error saying "That domain name is already in use. Please choose a different domain name."
When I type in www.bankstownbasketball.sportingpulse.net it redirects to the sportingpulse.com website.
What's the issue?
G'day - some names were 'pre-reserved' for sites with good traffic, like your own.
ReplyDeleteHowever in this case, we have not made this point at your site as yet (not activated).
Sorry, will get this rectified.
Andrew
Wow, thank you very much! Works like a charm!
ReplyDeleteI faced the same issue while trying to register, thank you for the explanation, because I was a litle confused)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing such valuable information. Keep posting such great info for us, thanks.
ReplyDelete