What is a Link Domain?
Link Domains are used in NATS to let surfers join a site without appearing to leave the site they were previously on. This is useful, as link domains can prevent surfers from being scared off when they are redirected to another URL when going through pages like the NATS pre-join form.
Additionally, your link domain will set a cookie to track the surfer from when they click the affiliate link to when they sign up for the site they are on. This ensures that your tracking statistics will remain accurate, even if your affiliate's NATS Code gets lost from the URL during the surfing process. As a result, it is important to set the correct link domain at the beginning of your tour-- otherwise, a surfer will not get tracked properly if the NATS Code is lost.
Link domains are Apache server aliases of your NATS domain, and you can create as many of them as you choose.
Setting Up a Link Domain
Configuring Your Server
Note: This step is not necessary if your tour is on the same server as your NATS install. If your tour is on a different server, you should use the following instructions. If your tour is on the same server, skip to Adding Your Link Domain.
Before you begin setting up a link domain, you will first need to create a sub-domain of your site in DNS and point that new sub-domain at your NATS server.
For example, assume that your affiliate program domain is affiliate_program.com and the member site domain you are working with is member_site.com. In this scenario, you would need a link domain -- join.member_site.com -- which will point to the same place as affiliate_program.com
If you need help setting up this step, you will need to ask your server host for assistance.
Adding Your Link Domain
To continue configuring your new Link Domain, you will need to edit your Apache configuration. This can either be done by you, or by your server host. In your Apache configuration, find the virtual host declaration for your NATS domain. When you have found that, add the following line to your VirtualHost section:
ServerAlias join.member_site1.com
For example:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName affiliate_program.com
ServerAlias *.affiliate_program.com
ServerAlias join.member_site.com
ServerAlias join.member_site2.com
ServerAlias join.member_site3.com
DocumentRoot /path/to/nats/www
<Directory /path/to/nats/www>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
Once all these steps have been completed, your new link domain should be configured and ready for use.
