Using a domain name with a iweb MobileMe websiteThese instructions are just as applicable to web.mac.com users but we have used web.me.com as the example. On July 10th, 2008, after the release of MobileMe, the me.com domain is used for MobileMe pages. Since many customers created webpages under .Mac, the web.mac.com, this domain is still available and these customers do not need to distribute a new web address to their visitors. For more information visit http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1932
All domain name registrations and domain transfers are able to resolve their domain name to their MobileMe website. We recommend using the zone file method over domain name forwarding because your domain name will work as though it were on a paid hosting account. You can even add email accounts (See email accounts pricing ) to your domain name and still use your MobileMe website. "Thank you so much for sorting things out for me. It is all up and running now and I am so excited!!!! I battled to get it up and running for two weeks! Cannot thank you enough for your help." Julie, Australia |
The instructions below detail all the various methods to direct your domain name to your MobileMe website, including the option, where your domain name will resolve both with and without the www in front of your domain name. eg http://www.yourdomainname.com/Site/Welcome.html and http://yourdomainname.com/Site/Welcome.html . Most people use the easy method of domain forwarding but by using the zone file method, your MobileMe website will hide the fact that you are using MobileMe service and all the pages on your website will have your domain name in the URL. Passion Computing has a comprehensive range of domain name extensions for registration. See domain name prices for full listing. Zone File Method. You must complete steps 1 to 4 before your domain will resolve correctly to your MobileMe website. Follow these instructions exactly; (1) register or transfer your domain to Passion Computing (2) Login and order advanced DNS Management/set up zone files (3) check your name server records are correct - something 95% of users do not do and wonder why their domain does not resolve (4) login to MobileMe and check your domain is set up in their system correctly. Step 1: Register or Transfer your domain name If you have used the iweb application to create your MobileMe website, and you want to use your domain name to your MobileMe website, you will firstly need to register a domain name or if you have already registered a domain, you can transfer your domain name to us (please note: you cannot transfer a global domain name for 60 days from registration or renewal - this rule is set out by ICANN). Not all domain name registrars offer you the ability to edit your zone files or use domain name forwarding for FREE. Some may not offer the service at all. Domain name clients who cannot transfer their domain name across because of the 60 day rule, can only utilize advanced dns management with us, by purchasing a business email hosting plan, which comes with free advanced DNS management. You will need to contact us for instructions on how to do this, because you will not have login access to order business email hosting directly from the website and we will need to order this hosting product for you before you have login access. Step 2: ORDER ADVANCED DNS MANAGEMENT Login to your account and activate advanced DNS management, by clicking on "Add services". You will see the following screen. 
Select the product and order 'hosting product' . Screen 2: You must tick the box 'choose only DNS' and click 'order url forwarding/dns hosting'. (if you do not tick this box, you will order the wrong product, and will need to then login and cancel domain name forwarding and keep dns hosting.) 
Edit your zone file to complete the advanced dns order. Enter the A name records, C name records that you wish to change, 
The zone files for mobileme will look like A 17.250.248.156 www CName web.me.com and complete the order by clicking the 'payment' link (this is on the top of the zone file editor - hard to see and often missed), and you will get the page below and click 'confirm order'. You must see a message that the order has been submitted. If you do not see this page, all the zone file edits you have made have not been saved and you will have to go back to "add services". 
Step 3: Change your Name Server Records Check or change your name server records to the records below. Note: if you have transferred a domain name in, you will need to change your Name Server records, before changes you have made to your zone files will work.. By default, all new domain name registrations have the name server records below. | Host Name | ip adreess | primary name server | brigh.twoplums.com.au | 202.47.4.136 | secondary name server | mutley.twoplums.com.au | 120.136.40.98 |
Wait. Do not visit your domain name for at least an hour after your name server records have been redelegated. If you are anxious about whether or not you have correctly set up domain name forwarding, log in and check the name server records fields are set correctly and go to 'zone files' are correctly entered. Step 4: Login to MobileMe Then you need to log in to MobileMe. Go to www.me.com . Click on the Accounts button, top left hand side window.Click Personal Domains in the side bar. Click Add Domain. Add Your Domain Name, including the extension. Click Continue and then Done. If once your domain does resolve and point mobileMe and not your website but dotMac page not found, this means that your domain name is resolving correctly but you have most likely put your website files in the wrong folder of your MobileMe account. | The official instructions provided by Apple suggest that you need to "Go to your registrar's website. Define web.me.com as the "www" CNAME (alias) for your domain." Our online system, will allow you to do this BUT please note, if you follow Apple's official instructions, only the www of your domain name will resolve. Your domain name without the www record will not resolve to your MobileMe account. It will come up with "page cannot be displayed", you need to create a hostless A name record The reason why Apple has users create a CName record and no A name records is because if they change their servers and ip addresses, they do not have to notify MobileMe users. After several emails to Apple, we were able to get a response from MobileMe "Using the IP address in the way you mentioned in your second email is a valid alternative method, should the registrar not permit the use of the domain without the www." Mark MobileMe Support Specialist. So although, Apple do not provide the ip address in their instructions, you can use the instructions we provide to resolve your domain name to your MobileMe website.
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Comparison of Methods| Method | Advantages | Disadvantages | | Domain Forwarding (standard) | Both the www and http:// of your domain name will resolve to your web.me.com website. If you use your company name as your username, so that your web.me.com has your company name in the URL - you can take advantage of the high page rank of web.me.com website. http://web.me.com/your_account_name/site_name is the usual form of your MobileMe website name. So if you use your company name as your account name and a relevant keyword phrase as your site name, it will most likely mean that when someone types in your company name into Google search, your website will rank quite high. This also depends on how unique your company name is an the content of your website, keywords, title tag choices, etc. You will need to ensure that you get inbound links to your website, so that your website will get indexed on search engines. | Your webpages will not be indexed on search engines under your domain name, they will only be listed under web.me.com domain. | | Domain Forwarding (framed) | Both the www and http:// of your domain name will resolve to your web.me.com website and the web.me.com domain is hidden behind a frame, from your website visitor. | Poor for search engines. Even if you get inbound links to your website, only the homepage of your website could get listed in search engines. All other content on your website is invisible to search engines. | Zone file method(with advanced DNS management) | All your webpages will be indexed under your domain name with www in front of the domain name. Web.me.com domain name is hidden from the website visitor. Potentially better for search engines and if you decide to discontinue using web.me.com you can program 301 redirects to your new webpages. However, you need to build up the page rank of your own domain name, rather than rely on the high page rank of web.me.com website. All your webpages will be indexed under your domain name with www and without the www in front of the domain name. So it will resolve like http://www.lighthouseorphans.org and http://lighthouseorphans.org/Site/Home.html | The only disadvantage of this method is if Apple change the ip address for the A records, you will need to edit your zone files to change the ip address or your domain name will not resolve to your website. |
FAQs What is the differences between iLife, iWeb, iWork, and MobileMe? MobileMe is an annual subscription service that offers multiple Internet-based benefits, such as email, online storage, web publishing, data syncing, and more. You can find a list of the features of MobileMe at the following web page: MobileMe Features http://www.apple.com/mobileme/features/ iLife is a suite of software for managing photos and creating movies, music, and websites. iWeb is part of this suite, along with iPhoto, iMovie, and several other applications. You can find out more about this software suite and its contents here: iLife Features http://www.apple.com/ilife/ iWork is a suite of office productivity software. This suite includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. These programs offer word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations respectively. You can find more details about the features of this software suite here: iWork http://www.apple.com/iwork/ Do I need an Apple Computer to use MobileMe? Web publishing is possible from any computer that meets the MobileMe system requirements. You can find these requirements at the following link:http://www.apple.com/mobileme/pricing/ The important thing to note is that use of the MobileMe web interface, which includes uploading to the iDisk among other features, is dependent on the browser used regardless of whether the customer uses Mac OS X or Windows. The only web publishing program that is supported for publishing to MobileMe is iWeb. However, other web publishing programs can be used to create webpages, which can then be uploaded directly to the iDisk, where customer files are stored. The following article describes the process in detail. How to publish a custom website http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2637 Does Apple provide support for MobileMe? All MobileMe members are entitled to contact MobileMe support for assistance as part of their membership, should they need detailed help using any feature of MobileMe. Do Passion Computing provide support for domain names? Yes, if you are using Apple's MobileMe and your domain name is transferred or registered with us, and you have problems getting your domain name to correctly resolve then by all means, email us and we will assist you with your zone files and name server updates. Please let us know if you want to use domain name forwarding method (framed/standard) or editing the zone file method. If you do not specify a method, we will assume that you want us to use the zone file method. Note: You will need to login to MobileMe to ensure that you have followed all the instructions but we will ensure that your domain name records are correctly set. With a full suite of domain name extensions to choose from you can have an Australian domain with your MobileMe website, Asian domain, UK domain, EU domain, NZ domain, Global domain, For full list of available domains, see Domain Name Prices If you intend to use the Zone File Method, and want to use a country domain, you need to log in to MobileMe. Go to www.me.com . Click on the Accounts button, top left hand side window.Click Personal Domains in the side bar. Click Add Domain. Add Your Domain Name, including the extension. Click Continue and then Done. You need to make sure that you can add the domain name with the country code extension, otherwise the zone file method will not work. Contact MobileMe support, if in doubt but you will definitely be able to use domain name forwarding with any domain name registered. There is no charge for domain name forwarding or zone file editing, which come free with all domain names registered or transferred to Passion Computing. Is there any additional charges except for domain name registration and renewal, to use the advanced DNS management or domain forwarding with my domain name? Domain forwarding both framed and standard, and advanced DNS management are free services that come with all domain name registrations and transfers. Please note that you are unable to transfer your global domain name to us for a period of 60 days after registration or renewal.
Can I use a .com.au domain name with MobileMe? Yes, customers have used the zone file method and the domain name forwarding method to resolve their Australian domain name to their MobileMe websites. This is a question you may not be able to answer, or a problem you can resolve, but I will give you a try.I listed the website with a free google listing as you suggested in this email. When you search for our business name, the business listing comes up fine, but the google listing is all wrong. It displays 'home' in the title. Google uses the titletag in your website. When you login to mobileme, you will notice somewhere it says the word “home”. You need to change this to the name of your business.When you change this and google has updated its database, it will no longer say “home” it will say the name of your business. You will notice this more starkly when you add your site to your favourites/bookmarks. It always uses the title tag that appears next to “windows internet explorer”, for your site, when bookmarking the homepage, it will say “home”.So, I would change all your title tags on the whole site and login to MobileMe to do that. You can also use an iweb seo tool to add keywords and page descriptions to your site. |