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.
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
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_site1.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.
