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Domain Purchasing & Forwarding Guide |
When you set up your site with YTB, your website is a
sub-page of the main YTB website. By default, your primary web page address
will be
www.ytb.com/userid (ALL LOWER CASE). Your Booking Engine address
will be
www.ytbtravel.com/userid (ALL LOWER CASE). If you purchase your own
domain and subscribe to Domain Forwarding through Genesis Domains, you will
be able to market your site and establish a web address of
www.YourBusinessName.com, vs. using the long YTB sub-page address naming
convention. If you purchase your own domain name, you must also purchase the
Domain Forwarding Service. This allows your client to type in your address
of
www.YourBusinessName.com (CASE DOES NOT MATTER) and this service
transparently forwards the end user to your Marketing Site at
www.ytb.com/userid or your Travel Booking Engine at
www.ytbtravel.com/userid automatically, depending on how you configured
your forwarding instructions. Forwarding your Domain to your Booking
Engine is suggested as this allows the end user to immediately see a
page similar to what they were expecting to see when they have the intent of
booking some travel.
Included with the domain you purchased, is an e-Mail Forwarding service. This service allows you to create an e-Mail alias address that is associated with your business name and forwards your messages to your home e-Mail address. For example, say Michelle McGann’s e-Mail address is MichelleMcGann@Comcast.net. This service would allow her to create an alias of Michelle@YourBusinessName.com that she can advertise on her business cards and website. Every e-Mail that is sent to this alias address would be forwarded to MichelleMcGann@Comcast.net transparently. Using this service IS STRONGLY SUGGESTED for a couple of reasons; Not only does it give a more established representation of your new business, it also allows you to change your e-Mail address and or Internet Service Provider without impacting your clients’ ability to e-Mail you. If you give out 1000 business cards with your current e-Mail address and then change your home e-Mail address, those clients will no longer have a valid address for you. If you use the “alias/forwarding service” and reference your alias address on your business cards, you can simply change the forwarding instructions for your e-Mail “alias” to redirect those clients to your new address, giving you the flexibility to change your e-Mail address/Internet Service Provider without impacting your previously approached clients.
Domain Name Purchases – Currently $9.00/yr
Domain Forwarding Service – Currently $3.00/yr
e-Mail Forwarding Service – Currently Included
Total: Appx $15.00 per year.
1) Go to www.GenesisDomains.com
2) Search on the domain names you would like to purchase for your booking engine and/or marketing site to determine their availability.
3) Purchase the domain name(s) you wish to acquire.
4) During the purchase process, be sure to purchase the same number of "domain forwarding credits" as the number of domains you purchased. Genesis Domains will try to sell you many other services during this process, the Domain and forwarding credits are ALL you need to purchase!!
5) Configure your new Domain Name(s) to forward to your YTB sites you have chosen to utilize a such a Domain. On the Genesis Domains site, there is a fantastic FAQ page on helping you to go through this process. Additionally, on the home page, there is a customer support number that you can call to help you with this as well as utilizing your Sponsor or Power Team Leader for guidance. When establishing the "forwarding instructions" during this configuration process, you will want to use the URL addresses below, exactly as stated below (lower case) for your respective business sites. Where you see "your_ytb_user_id", this is the user ID you defined when you originally purchased your YTB business.
- When you are forwarding a Domain Name to....
- Your primary booking engine
- Forward to http://www.ytbtravel.com/your_ytb_user_id
- Your Golf Booking engine
- Forward to http://www.ytbgolf.com/your_ytb_user_id
- Your Romance Travel Booking Engine:
- Forward to http://www.ytbromance.com/your_ytb_user_id
- Your YTB Flowers Engine:
- Forward to http://www.ytbflowers.com/your_ytb_user_id
- Your Marketing Site:
- Forward to http://www.ytb.com/your_ytb_user_id
6) When you purchased your Domain names, you were also provided "e-mail alias" or "e-mail forwarding" credits for free that will allow you to set up the e-mail addresses, which will be tied with the naming convention of your domain name. Once configured, any messages sent to this "alias" will automatically be forwarded to your primary e-mail address with your current Internet Service Provider. Configure your email alias forwarding address(es). On the Genesis Domains site, there is a fantastic FAQ page on helping you to go through this process. Additionally, on the home page, there is a customer support number that you can call to help you with this as well as utilizing your Sponsor or Power Team Leader for guidance.
Congratulations! You have just completed the Setup of your website for your new Online Travel Store. Your new domain name(s) and e-mail alias is the information you will want to reflect on your business cards. Go to www.ytb.com/ytbloginid (ex. www.ytb.com/mmcgann), select the login link, login and then select the “Personal Information” link to change this information. If you require further assistance for some reason with updating your information in your back office, the best place to direct that question would be YTB at (618) 655-9477. Any questions regarding the configuration of your domain would be with one of your Success Leaders or by contacting the domain hosting company itself (the number is listed at the top of the home page of your domain name hosting provider).