Let’s say you’re into weasel flogging. I know a lot of you are into it, so it’s a good example. Maybe you’ve registered “weaselflogging.com” and have a blog there, all about the most effective and efficient ways to flog weasels. But then you decide to buy a second domain name — say “flogthatweasel.com” — and you want to point it at your weaselflogging.com blog.

So to summarize, you want both domain names pointing at the same blog. You are NOT trying to launch a new site here. I mean, nobody needs two weasel flogging sites. You just want your bases covered with two domain names.

You choices are:

1. Domain forwarding
When you forward a domain, you’re simply saying to the browser, “Oh, flogthatweasel.com. You need to head over to weaselflogging.com.” So when someone enters flogthatweasel.com into their browser, it just sends them to weaselflogging.com. They know they’re heading to the different domain name, because as the page loads, the URL in their browser actually changes to weaselflogging.com.

2. Domain forwarding with masking
“Masking” means you’re hiding the actual URL of the page you’re sending visitors to. In this case, we still want users to wind up at weaselflogging.com, but we want them to think they’re at flogthatweasel.com. So basically, the same thing happens as in #1 above, but this time the URL in their browser doesn’t change. Instead, it remains “flogthatweasel.com,” just as they typed it in.

(This is a really useful strategy for affiliate links. Let’s say you’re an Amazon.com affiliate and are constantly sending people to Amazon to buy a book on weasel flogging. However, you don’t want them to know that it’s an affiliate link. So what you do is you register a domain name like www.weaselfloggingbook.com and you forward and mask that domain so that it goes to your affiliate link. The visitor will think they’re at weaselfloggingbook.com, but they’re actually at http://www.amazon.com/books/category=rodent-abuse&subgenre=weasel-flogging&affiliate=8309302.)

The problem with the way that most registrars do masking (like GoDaddy’s forward-and-mask service) is that the URL in the browser remains flogthatweasel.com as the visitor clicks on links and views other pages. It won’t change to, for instance, www.flogthatweasel.com/contact.htm.

3. Mapping
I don’t know if this is the official term, but I think of option #3 (which solves the problem from option #2) as “domain mapping.” In order for this to work, you need to own both domain names involved. You can’t do what I’m calling “mapping” with an Amazon URL because you don’t own Amazon.com. But don’t you wish you did?

In this case, you’re telling the new domain to use the same files as the old domain name. You’re saying, “If someone wants a file at flogthatweasel.com OR at weaselflogging.com, look in this folder on my hosting service to find it.”

This will make your links work properly. They will behave in all ways as if they are two totally separate websites, but they will use the same files. So if you make a change to the contact page of weaselflogging.com, the contact page on flogthatweasel.com will change too.

Happy domain play. I know you love it.