Hosting a subdirectory of my current website on its own domain name

Question

The situation

I have a hosting service (one.com) on which I have installed a wordpress.org site in a subdirectory wordpress:

myhost.example/wordpress/

(myhost.example is actually my own domain, but it already has contents and I don't want wordpress/ to appear in the root of that domain.)

I want to use a second domain for this site. Thinking I would be able to forward to the WordPress site without problems, I registered the domain at GoDaddy.com:

mydomain.example

What I want

So when my visitors type in mydomain.example, I want them to see the contents on myhost.example/wordpress/, and the same for all subpages (mydomain.example/a/subpage fetches from myhost.example/wordpress/a/subpage).

Just a redirect isn't enough, I want my visitors to see only mydomain.example as their domain.

Some notes

• If I set up forward with URL masking at GoDaddy, they just give a full frame, pointing to myhost.example/wordpress/. This isn't good enough for me, since mydomain.example will always show up in the address bar, also for subpages (I want mydomain.example/a/subpage to show in the address bar for a subpage).

• I believe this could in principle be done with a .htaccess file with URL rewriting, but I have no hosting with GoDaddy so I can't upload such a file there. Hosting with GoDaddy is very expensive (of course) so I don't want to do that.

• I don't think I can use DNS settings; the host of mydomain.example says they don't allow anyone else to point to their name servers.

• If possible, I wouldn't want to re-install the WordPress site, it would take quite some time. I'd prefer to keep it at myhost.example/wordpress/ (if possible)

• Anything involving transferring the domain is supposed to take 5-7 working days. I would need my site up-and-running earlier than that, so I'd like to avoid it if possible.

Am I locked in?

As it seems, I am rather locked-in with GoDaddy. I can't use the domain with .htaccess since I can't upload such a file (and won't pay for hosting by GoDaddy). I can't use any of their forward options since none of them do what I want (one just forwards, the one that masks the URL does it with frames).

Would you agree?

Possible solutions

• Transfer the domain to any hosting service with reasonable hosting pricing, as opposed to GoDaddy (I'd probably use one.com, the same host as for myhost.example, in that case), and there either

  • re-install WordPress on the new account, or
  • use .htaccess with URL rewrite on the new account to fetch the contents from myhost.example/wordpress/. Can this be set-up to work with sub-pages as well? And visitors won't ever see myhost.example/wordpress, just mydomain.example? E.i., mydomain.example/a/subpage/ wold fetch from myhost.example/wordpress/a/subpage/?

• This might be a long shot but:

  • Find some free (preferably) hosting allowing to point to their name servers
  • Make DNS settings at GoDaddy so that my domain appears at the site above
  • at that site, put a .htaccess file with URL rewriting to forward to myhost.example/wordpress/ Could this be possible? What services could I use in that case? As I see it, this would be the only way not to have to transfer a domain (taking 5-7 working days) and not having to re-install the WordPress site.

Answer 1

you might want to take a look at Apache mod_proxy

ex.

ProxyRequests Off
<Proxy *>`
  Order deny,allow
  Allow from all
</Proxy>
#someone requests mydomain.example 
  ProxyPass / http://myhost.example/wordpress
  ProxyPassReverse / http://myhost.example/wordpress

this is if you can get a host just for .htaccess

Answer 2

Are you sure One won't let you point multiple domains (from whatever registrar) to the root of your site? For instance, I use GoDaddy's Economy Shared plan (cheapest/least features). I can have unlimited addon domains, but they all have to point to root. It's a very simple .htaccess trick that forwards my domains to their approrpriate subdirectories. I currently have 7 WordPress installs, all accessible from different domains, masked with .htaccess.

As an aside, I don't know what One charges per month, but with GoDaddy I got a 3 month deal for US$1.99/month. After that I pay $5/month. If you're able to afford it, that might be a better option if One doesn't let you point other domains to your root.

Answer 3

This should ordinarily be quite a simple process...

• Change the NAMESERVERS of mydomain.example (at GoDaddy) to point to the DNS at myhost.example

• Setup an Add-On domain in your hosting account at myhost.example to point mydomain.example at your /wordpress sub directory (which needs to be set up as a subdomain).

However, looking at the FAQ at one.com...

Can I have several domains on one web space?

No. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide several domains on one web space. It will however be possible to set up an additional web space and add a script which forwards the relevant domain/web space to a different domain/web space. This does however require two subscriptions.

GoDaddy does not appear to be the problem, since they allow you to update the DNS. The problem appears to be with your host (one.com)

---

As an alternative (quick fix) you could perhaps setup a subdomain instead? eg. blog.myhost.example could show the content from myhost.example/wordpress. This of course doesn't involve mydomain.example.