Set Up A Custom Domain / discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Set Up A Custom Domain.

Whane The Whip 1224717118|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Is this still valid? I just checked my godaddy acp and I did not see a "total DNS Control" link.

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Freelance SEO

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Search Engine Placement Services

Re: total DNS Control

scottplan 1225010991|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hey Whane — it's still there:

Whane The Whip 1225373504|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Ah, thanks for that. I was having a hard time finding that link.

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Search Engine Placement Services

I don't have a custom domain link in the admin section!

crazyhappenings 1230071640|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I can see it in my friend's wiki, but it's missing from mine. I thought i saw that it was a bug and the link disappeared the other day - but now I can't find that post - and I just updated godaddy but not my wiki. Any ideas???

Re: I don't have a custom domain link in the admin section!

Timothy Foster 1230077355|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Custom Domain has become a pro feature. Pro features must be paid for, so if you want custom domain, you must purchase the pro features.

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— Blog ~ Life's Handbook

Re: custom domain link in the admin section

scottplan 1260323496|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Custom domains are currently back on the table for free accounts. I'm just posting this so it's clear as people read this aging thread.

Re: I don't have a custom domain link in the admin section!

crazyhappenings 1231189909|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hmm. That's $60 a year. I only have a one page site! I think I'm going to have to host this wiki elsewhere. Crap!

Re: I don't have a custom domain link in the admin section!

Helmuti_pdorf 1231229465|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

But you are willing to pay a provider for the redirect facility only? That is strange …

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Re: I don't have a custom domain link in the admin section!

crazyhappenings 1236868655|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

No, I paid google $10 to register the domain and they will forward it for free.

Re: I don't have a custom domain link in the admin section!

Phil Chett 1236872597|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

hi Alison
has i understand it there is a hell of a lot of a difference between forwarding a url and custom domain.
So as you only have one page you probably don't need any more than a url redirect.

Custom domain

schokochris 1231497010|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hello!

I tried the custom domain setting as well. Now I have some questions

I registered a domain praemien-teilen24.de at euserv - my wikidot.com domain is www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com.

In the euserv control panel i can simply make a domain redirect praemien-teilen24.de to www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com and whenever someone types praemien-teilen24.de in the browser the wiki site will show up - but www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com will appear in the browser address line.

For me this is awful because i want to be recognized as a top level domain. I hoped that even subpages like www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com/comdirect would appear like www.praemien-teilen24.de/comdirect in the adress line.

So I figured that if I apply the custom domain setting with a pro account (i am testing it right now), then in my browser would appear www.praemien-teilen24.de instead of www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com - but although i went through the above tutorial this will not happen …

So just be clear. Do i need to configure the domain redirect at euserv or only the CNAME?

Right now my configuration looks like that

*.praemien-teilen24.de A 67.228.37.26 86400
praemien-teilen24.de A 67.228.37.26 86400
praemien-teilen24.de CNAME wikidot.com 86400
www.praemien-teilen24.de CNAME wikidot.com 86400

Under the admin:manage -> custom domain settting i inserted

custom domain: praemien-teilen24.de
redirect: www.praemien-teilen24.de

Is this all correct? Because it won't work. Will the pages at the end look like www.praemien-teilen24.de/comdirect or still with the wikidot subdomain? Does the site appear in the google search results with praemien-teilen24.de or with www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com?

Thanks fors your help

last edited on 1231497127|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by schokochris + show more

Re: Custom domain

Squark 1231503735|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Well, I think that everything is ok, when I type in http://praemien-teilen24.de/ it goes to wikidot.com but the address is still *.de. If I click on some links, I am still at praemien-teilen24.de address, not on *.wikidot.com.

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my blog
squarkDesign - grafika komputerowa
rTechnologies - strony www

Re: Custom domain

schokochris 1231505154|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Glad it works for you - and I hope everyone else …. I can't reach http://praemien-teilen24.de/ at all.

So I guess I have to wait until the DNS-Server that is responsible for me is updating?

Re: Custom domain

Phil Chett 1231508524|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

http://praemien-teilen24.de/system:list-all-pages
http://praemien-teilen24.de/
http://praemien-teilen24.de/banken
http://praemien-teilen24.de/versicherungen
and a load of others

are all ok for me in both ie and ff

Re: Custom domain

Squark 1231508867|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

As you said, probably you have to wait for DNS to propagate changes. Both www and w/o www works perfectly. So I think that your problem is soved :)

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my blog
squarkDesign - grafika komputerowa
rTechnologies - strony www

nice

cold_blood3d 1236826539|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

thanks for the awesome and easy to understand guide. i got my domain up and running very fast.

last edited on 1236826555|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by cold_blood3d + show more

Stacey Dyer 1237409240|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Excellent advice! I only have one small problem. In site manager » custom domains, I inserted the following:

Custom Domain: southwestimagebank.org
301 redirects: www.southwestimagebank.org

Waiting until the end of the day, I decided I would test things.

Entered regular domain - www.swib.wikidot.com » works fine.
Then tried - swib.wikidot.com » fine.
Then tried the new domain - southwestimagebank.org » that works fine too.

But when I enter www.southwestimagebank in to my web browser an error message appears saying the link is broken! Tried changing the settings to CD: www.southwestimagebank.org and 301 redirects to southwestimagebank.org but this doesn't work either and now I am unable to make any changes at all.

I know I shouldn't worry about it, but most of my users will undoubtedly assume there is a www. before the website name, don't want them to be disappointed with a broken link!

Am I doing something wrong?

Phil Chett 1237410911|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

this is what i have in my wikidot account.
do you have similar?

last edited on 1237411030|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by Phil Chett + show more

Stacey Dyer 1237413726|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Yes, I have this:

Custom domain:southwestimagebank.org
Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site (not selected)
301 redirect: www.southwestimagebank.org

Sorry to be a nuisance… although wikidot is all about learning skills though the sharing of ideas eh!

last edited on 1237414535|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by Stacey Dyer + show more

Re: custom domain

scottplan 1237507196|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

In my DNS control panel, I've got the www CNAME pointed to @ — do you? Maybe that makes a difference. Otherwise I'm stumped.

Stacey Dyer 1237539163|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hi Scottplan,

In my DNS Control panel, I have the following:

A (Host) » Host Name: "@" » Points to IP Address: "67.228.37.28"
Under CNAMES (Aliases) » Alias Name: "wikidot.com" » Points to Host Name: "@"

Should the CNAMES (Aliases) » Alias Name be my NEW website name? with the full www prefix or without? I believe I may have tried this only for an error message to appear.

When I return to the Domain Details Page under the TOTAL DNS (available) the settings appear as:
ARecord @ 67.228.37.26
CNAME wikidot.com @

By the way, I have not forwarded the domain as I only have one "southwestimagebank.org" which I link to wikidot via site manager etc. etc.

MUCH appreciation for any assistance you can offer! Thanks.

Re: custom domain

scottplan 1237643603|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Best I can offer is to make everything like mine, because… mine works, and I don't understand this stuff enough to be really creative about it. This how-to assumes you've left the control panel pretty much as you found it when you registered the domain.

Under CNAMES (Aliases) » Alias Name: "wikidot.com" » Points to Host Name: "@"

That sounds creative. I'd suggest deleting that alias.

Do you have a www alias in your DNS control panel? If not, then edit the "wikidot.com" alias to say "www", or create a new www alias. The www alias should point to "@".

google rank

cold_blood3d 1238297416|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Be aware that your site will likely take a massive plunge in google hits when you replace your wikidot domain with a custom domain. For me, this meant going from ~ 1400 google referrals per day to ~ 200 right after I made the switch. I assume your ranking must be re-built from scratch. Is this true?

Re: google rank

scottplan 1238386059|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

It's not clear to me. Ours has had this dual address for some time (wikidot subdomain and custom domain), and I just recently flipped the switch to direct everything to the custom domain. It works really well, but there may have been some google impact.

Not sure how I'd measure it. Most of our traffic is email driven, self-directed, and word of mouth.

Re: google rank

RobElliott 1259774997|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

cold_blood3d said earlier this year:

Be aware that your site will likely take a massive plunge in google hits when you replace your wikidot domain with a custom domain. For me, this meant going from ~ 1400 google referrals per day to ~ 200 right after I made the switch.

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but it's an interesting subject and I have noticed this (and had it reported to me) on several sites recently although I don't think it's a new phenomenon. One of the sites I developed, http://www.fossoway.org, was developed under the name http://fossowaydev.wikidot.com and it was picked up by google very quickly and the search term "fossoway" brought it up near the top of the rankings. Custom domain http://www.fossoway.org was then setup and the site disappeared from the rankings completely the next time google did a re-index. Well it's probably on some lowly page somewhere but I haven't found it without explicitly putting fossoway.org in the search term. I've checked the dns and custom domain settings both at 1&1 and wikidot and can't see anything obviously wrong.

I assume your ranking must be re-built from scratch. Is this true?

I think the answer is a resounding yes: you have to re-build the google ranking although I find it odd that google finds the wikidot domain very quickly but not others. In my case that has meant getting 1&1 to re-submit it (at their leisure it seems), and I have also manually re-submitted it using Web CEO. Temporarily I have used adwords so that it is at least at the top of the results when you search for "fossoway" but that is not a permanent solution.

Worryingly I have found exactly the same problem on Bing. I don't think it a problem with Wikidot but just the way search engines work. But it's a huge pain.

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last edited on 1259775891|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by RobElliott + show more

Re: google rank

Dadn 1260828075|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hello

This is my first post on the Forum so hope I'm following protocol - I'm sure you'll all keep me right.

I put the basic Fossoway site content together and Rob did a great job of making it look professional with a CSS facelift and extra functionality such as the forum and gallery. I've done some research and thinking about the difficulties Rob mentions in his post and thought I'd share my thoughts here.

I wonder whether the custom domain settings have anything to do with the SEO difficulties the Fossoway site is experiencing. Some observations/questions:

1. Custom Domain Setup
On the custom domain page of the "admin:manage" section of the fossoway site, the box for, "use the custom domain as the only domain for this site", is checked. According to the last bullet point under the heading "What should you do before setting a custom domain?", all requests to fossoway.wikidot.com should be automatically redirected to the custom domain (because the box is checked). However, I am still able to view and edit the site via the fossoway.wikidot.com address.

a. Is this because there is no explicit redirect set up for the fossoway.wikidot.com domain?
b. Would it be advisable to add a 301 redirect from fossoway.wikidot.com to www.fossoway.org to "force" wikidot to use the custom domain?
c. I notice that Rob set up a redirect for "fossoway.org". I think this must have been included in the purchase of the www.fossoway.org domain (Rob sorted all this for me so I'm not sure and haven't checked with him yet).

2. SEO
I checked the redirect for fossoway.wikidot.com using a tool online ([http://www.webconfs.com/redirect-check.php]) and got the message;
"Either http://fossoway.wikidot.com is NOT REDIRECTING to any URL or the redirect is NOT SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY". This is not what I expected because, although there is no 301 redirect explicitly set up from fossoway.wikidot.com on the admin:manage page, the "use custom domain as the only domain" box is checked.

I checked the "fossoway.org" redirect that is currently set up and got;
"Found redirect to http://www.fossoway.org/. The Redirect is Search Engine Friendly."

a. According to the online redirect checker tool, search engines might think that the fossoway.wikidot.com domain has no contents. Do you think that might be what is happening with Google/Bing and could explain the poor rankings?
b. I notice that when I do a specific search e.g. "fossoway residents" a result appears with a link to the fossoway.wikidot.com site (not the www.fossoway.org site). Is there a chance that Google/Bing treat the www.fossoway.org and fossoway.wikidot.com sites as duplicate content and penalises them in the rankings accordingly?
c. www.fossoway.org is still ranking on first page in Yahoo! and Lycos (#1!) so the difficulty seems to be Google/Bing-specific.

One final thing that I wondered - Until today I had copied the contents of "Summary" on my forum posts (which are automatically displayed on the start page using a wikidot module) into the main body of the forum post itself. Could this be viewed as duplicate content and incur a search penalty? I have tonight removed this duplication just in case but not sure it was having a significant effect.

Any pearls of wisdom gratefully received.
Thanks

Do educational sites get the choice of custom domains?

Claudia Bianca 1238345201|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hi,

Very new here, but I've read all the posts about custom domains. We have applied for educational status, and we do want to use a custom domain name.

If educational sites do not qualify for custom domain names, we will switch to a pro plan. Does anyone know about the ed sites and domains?

Thanks,
Claudia

Re: Do educational sites get the choice of custom domains?

scottplan 1238386597|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I dunno. Ask Squark.

Another way of doing it

hummy 1244374046|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I've done it freely through a redirect at my domain registrant (godaddy.com). so I don't have to pay for PRO features (as this post describes).

Here's the document with instructions.

Cheers.
Mario.

last edited on 1251841504|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by hummy + show more

Various Questions

stacita 1251810260|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hi all. This is a really great How-To. But I'm running into a few problems. Specifically, when I try to create the custom domain from my Wikidot control panel, I get the error message:

Sorry, it seams that the new domain does not resolve to a valid IP address. See the tips at the bottom of this page.

So, a few questions from the uninitiated…

1. The How-To says we have to wait awhile after setting up a custom domain on GoDaddy. I've waited overnight. Does it take that long, or just an hour or two?
2. The note at the top of this How-To says that setting up a custom domain is now only a Pro feature. But even free account holders can follow the procedures outlined here and get a custom domain…right?
3. I've seen various IP addresses for Wikidot all over the place. I'm using the one written here: "67.228.37.26". Am I being too literal? (for instance, Scott, on your screenshot above, your IP address is different from 67.228.37.26).
4. For CName, I am using "wikidot.com". Once again, too literal? Should it rather say my site on wikidot? i.e., "mysite.wikidot.com."

Following the instructions exactly, I got the same description in my DNS as Stacey Dyer did (above). It looks like this:

If this isn't correct, perhaps an edit of the How-To is in order to make things more clear. I'm happy to do it once I figure this out!

-Stacy

last edited on 1251810466|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by stacita + show more

Re: Various Questions

pieterh 1251879418|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

• It should work after a few hours (depends on the DNS time-to-live)
• Custom domains work for all accounts again, I've fixed the HowTo
• Wikidot IP addresses do sometimes change, use 'ping wikidot.com' to know what it is now
• Use www.wikidot.com for the CNAME

You can also do CNAME wildcarding, so that any subdomain of your domain works as a custom domain. This is the zone file I typically use:

@ 10800 IN A 67.228.37.26 
* 28800 IN CNAME www.wikidot.com.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

Re: Various Questions

stacita 1251890533|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks, Pieter. The wildcard stuff is a bit over my head. I made a few changes on GoDaddy, so we'll see how it goes. My ping brought back a different IP address than the one listed here. On a side note, the instructions in the Site Admin for Custom Domain say we should enter "wikidot.com" for the CNAME, not "www.wikidot.com" and they do not imply that the IP address might change but rather list the 67 one as definitive. Perhaps this needs to be updated?

Not understanding this stuff too much, if the Wikidot IP addresses changes again, will the custom domain no longer work until we update the information in our domain manager?

Re: Various Questions

pieterh 1251910662|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

The Site Admin is wrong, yes, we fixed that today (I think, it was in progress anyhow).

Did not want to scare you about the IP address changing. We try to minimize that and will make sure to tell everyone if it happens. If you use wikidot.com or www.wikidot.com (same thing) for the CNAME, your subdomains will always work.

The root domain cannot use a CNAME record but must use an A record, which requires an IP address. So, usually the safest is to define your custom domain as "www.example.com" and a 301 redirect on "example.com". Thus if people type the root domain they are forwarded to the www subdomain. If the IP address does change (this happened during our crisis last week, for a day or two) the redirect breaks but the www still works.

Does that clarify it?

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

Re: Various Questions

gerdami 1254913848|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

@pieterh,
Is this the way you configured the domain below?

• anyname.wikiturf.com
• anyname.wikiturf.org
• anyname.ject.pro
• anyname.dg0.eu
• anyname.wikidotted.com
• anyname.wikify.me
• anyname.mtjaw.com
• anyname.irongiant.org
• anyname.irongiant.net

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gerdami - Visit Handbook en Français - Rate this howto:import-simple-excel-tables-into-wikidot up!

Re: Various Questions

pieterh 1254927182|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Yes, this is how I configured those domains.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

Re: Various Questions

gerdami 1255125321|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks for this domain :-)

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gerdami - Visit Handbook en Français - Rate this howto:import-simple-excel-tables-into-wikidot up!

stacita 1252211600|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks again for all your help. After much drama (principally because I had a lot of down time in between my tiny tweaks), everything is now working—yay!! Once I switched the positions of the "www" and the "wikidot.com" under CName and adjusted the IP address, I could save the new domain name in the Site Manager without getting the error message.

Unfortunately, I still couldn't get the custom domain to work. Typing the URL into the browser would just return the message "This site does not exist." I then noticed that something was really screwy with my test site's homepage (I was trying out the process on my test site first.) Although the page had content in it, the content was visible only in edit mode. No content appeared on the actual page- although you could see any content brought over from the CSS (like the header/side-bar, etc.). I tried erasing all of the content and writing just "Hi." Invisible. I checked other pages in the same category- no problems. I tried reverting the page to previous versions- same result. I tried deleting the entire page and then recreating it about 3 times. No matter what I did, I had the same problem: content built into the page, but none of it showing. Very weird. So I finally just deleted the page again, created a new homepage with a new URL (i.e., instead of "http://community.wikidot.com/home", I did "http://community.wikidot.com/homepage.") and reset the landing page in the Site Manager. Once I did that, the custom domain worked like magic!!

Anyway, the broken page was really weird. I can't figure out why this happened.

last edited on 1252213338|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by stacita + show more

I follow up explanations but...

Jeimss 1253023153|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I'm still receiving this message…

Sorry, it seams that the new domain does not resolve to a valid IP address. See the tips at the bottom of this page.

Is the IP address, I use for wikidot: 74.86.235.236 is good?

If not, I didn't find how to ping wikidot.com…

Can somebody help me, please?

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- James

Re: I follow up explanations but...

pieterh 1253026043|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

See my reply above:

• It should work after a few hours (depends on the DNS time-to-live)
• Wikidot IP addresses do sometimes change, use 'ping wikidot.com' to know what it is now
• Use www.wikidot.com for the CNAME

The IP address you have is correct.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

Jeimss 1253030004|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Just to be sure that I write the good thing on my DNS management.

Because now it doesn't work, i still receive the Ooops! message.

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- James

Re:

pieterh 1253031022|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

That second '@' is no good. Use '*' to make a wildcard, or 'www' to do the traditional thing.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

Re:

RobElliott 1253031489|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Shouldn't the CNAME address be just wikidot.com without the www? That's how it is on mine.

Rob

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Re:

leiger 1253114099|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Also, you've got www.wikidot.com. <— you may want to take out that trailing period / full stop.

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— Shane, Wikidot.com Community Admin

• CycloDS Revolution
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Re:

pieterh 1253121369|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

you may want to take out that trailing period / full stop

You need this only if you edit the raw DNS data (as I do). Any UI will add that automatically.

Sorry it's so difficult - DNS is not designed to be an end-user concept…

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

Re:

Carl Cravens 1253204720|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

DNS is hard for a lot of supposedly "professional" system admins.

The biggest obstacle to doing DNS right is that even the best implementations don't tell you when you're doing it wrong. You should never use a CNAME with @ (the domain root), but even BIND9 ("the" DNS server software) will let you do it.

When referencing fully-qualified domain names (FQDNs) in DNS, they are supposed to have a dot (period, full-stop) at the end, to indicate that they are a FQDN. Web-based DNS managers should manage that for you, inserting or removing the dots as necessary. I wouldn't count on any of them doing it right, though. :)

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Carl Cravens, ten.xyneohp|nevar#ten.xyneohp|nevar, WG Site Admin

Jeimss 1253033814|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I made the change up, but it still doesn't work…

Thanks a lot!

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- James

Re:

Carl Cravens 1253204895|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

James, I don't see where you've given the domain name you're working with… can you provide that, and any hostnames that you're trying to point to wikidot.com? (Domain name is just "mydomain.com" and a hostname would be "www" or such, used to make "www.mydomain.com".)

I can probably help you if I know what DNS records to look up.

Also, a screen shot of your current configuration would also be useful.

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Carl Cravens, ten.xyneohp|nevar#ten.xyneohp|nevar, WG Site Admin

James Kanjo 1253230313|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

At last! I'm not the only James around here!

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λ James Kanjo | blog | photos | contact

Jeimss 1253207097|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I'm working with : https://client.arianserver.com/

This what i wrote on the DNS management:

and what i wrote on my wiki : dblball.wikidot.com

and still doesn't work :(

But thanks a lot for all the help. I asked arian servers some help, but they refer me to ask wikidot how to do it.

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- James

last edited on 1253207237|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by Jeimss + show more

Re:

Ed Johnson 1253214608|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Try reversing your entries on the Wikidot setup. On my setup, I have "www.mydomain.com" on the custom domain line and "mydomain.com" on the 301 redirects line and it works fine.

[edit: It sounds like you should follow Carl's advice. it appears he understands this stuff more than most!]

-Ed

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Free Wikidot Applications · Your Shared Photo Gallery · Your Personal Blog

last edited on 1253214767|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by Ed Johnson + show more

Re:

RobElliott 1253223966|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I know I said the same thing about the CNAME entry, but looking at my 301 entry it doesn't have the www, so you might want to try that.

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last edited on 1253225513|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by RobElliott + show more

Carl Cravens 1253214458|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Okay, yeah… the problem isn't at a level you can control. Your provider's DNS is a mess… their servers apparently don't know about your domain, or even the addresses of its own authoritative name servers.

So you can stop trying to make this work for now… your DNS provider needs to fix some fundamental pieces of their configuration. Starting with the fact that their DNS servers apparently don't know about your domain at all.

Tell your provider this:

dblball.com, arianserver.net, and arianserver.com show glue records of

ns5.arianserver.net. 172800 IN A 209.44.122.132
ns6.arianserver.net. 172800 IN A 209.44.122.150

But neither of those DNS servers give any answer, authoritative or otherwise, for dblball.com. Those servers do not know the addresses for ns5.arianserver.net or ns6.arianserver.net, although they claim that ns5.arianserver.net is the Start-of-Authority (SOA) for arianserver.net and arianserver.com.

If I ask for the reverse-IP lookup on those addresses, they both result in mail.arianserver.com. But looking up mail.arianserver.com returns a CNAME for arianserver.com, which returns 64.86.58.118. The reverse mapping doesn't match.
Assuming that these two servers are supposed to be authoritative for these domains:

• Insert A-records for ns5/ns6, so the servers will answer authoritatively to their own names. (Not doing so will, at the very least, cause caching problems with BIND9 DNS servers. Setting NS records for these names does not eliminate the need to create A records as well.)
• Fix the reverse mapping for those two IP addresses to point to the ns5/ns6. (Not critical, but confusing.)
• Insert appropriate records for dblball.com into the name servers. (The core problem with your customer that is having trouble.)

Just email me or private message me here on wikidot if you have questions or need further help. Give them my email address if you need to. This should be simple to fix, and you shouldn't even need to be worrying about this.

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Carl Cravens, ten.xyneohp|nevar#ten.xyneohp|nevar, WG Site Admin

It works

Jeimss 1253485958|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks to all of you!

My provider manage to correct the error on their side because of your help!

Thanks again!

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- James

Re: It works

Carl Cravens 1253542875|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

That's good to hear. They still haven't quite fixed everything they should, but at least they've fixed your stuff.

Enjoy your custom domain!

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Carl Cravens, ten.xyneohp|nevar#ten.xyneohp|nevar, WG Site Admin

Buying a Custom Domain

leiger 1254600896|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Right, I know which unused custom domain I want to use, so…

I went over to GoDaddy and started setting it up, then chose PayPal as my payment option. Unfortunately it doesn't allow me to use my PayPal balance - I need to enter credit card details, which I don't have.

Any suggestions as to other places to buy a domain that are:

• Cheaper?
• Support the payment option I want?

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— Shane, Wikidot.com Community Admin

• CycloDS Revolution
• CycloDS Compatibility
• Starting a community project?

last edited on 1254601008|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by leiger + show more

Re: Buying a Custom Domain

RobElliott 1254602278|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I've used 1and1 as my host for custom domains and for my email accounts over the last 4 years with no problems and they accept PayPal as a payment option.

Rob

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last edited on 1254602415|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by RobElliott + show more

Re: Buying a Custom Domain

leiger 1254610960|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks - will have a look :)

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— Shane, Wikidot.com Community Admin

• CycloDS Revolution
• CycloDS Compatibility
• Starting a community project?

Re: Buying a Custom Domain

leiger 1254613179|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Unfortunately, it's only available for UK residents.

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— Shane, Wikidot.com Community Admin

• CycloDS Revolution
• CycloDS Compatibility
• Starting a community project?

Re: Buying a Custom Domain

Ed Johnson 1254626820|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Does 1and1.com work for you down under? I use them here in the US and have so for a few years. They have reasonable hosting and domain registration rates.

-Ed

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Free Wikidot Applications · Your Shared Photo Gallery · Your Personal Blog

Re: Buying a Custom Domain

leiger 1254634243|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Yes, that one allows Aussies ;) Ran into the same issue with PayPal though. Think I need to get myself a card :/

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— Shane, Wikidot.com Community Admin

• CycloDS Revolution
• CycloDS Compatibility
• Starting a community project?

Re: Buying a Custom Domain

James Kanjo 1254639957|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Consider using a credit-debit card — a card that works on the Visa/MasterCard network, but only takes money from your debit account (and you're therefore not given any credit, and will never be placed in debt).

I've done this with my bank. Ask your bank about it.

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λ James Kanjo | blog | photos | contact

Re: Buying a Custom Domain

RobElliott 1254642003|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I don't know if they are available in Australia yet but over here in the UK pre-paid credit cards have started to appear. I got a MasterCard one when I decided to get rid of all my "normal" credit cards last year. You top it up online from your bank account and the one I have can also be topped up with cash at the local post office. Although they don't give you credit and you can only spend the money you have put on the card (so you can't get into debt with them) they are a credit card so can be used online or when hiring a car for example where debit cards are usually not accepted.

Rob

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morningbird 1255454170|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Is there a way to do this with the DNS server hostname setting rather than the CNAME setting? I am not sure I have my terminology right, but it generally looks like this ns1.something.com and ns2.something.com. I have over a dozen other websites and they've all set up using the DNS setting. I have never run into this CNAME & IP thing before.

I asked my domain host about it and they said I had to pay extra for a tool to edit that stuff. SO I am either going to have to switch hosts or pay extra if I want to do it the way it's explained here. Also, is this a free feature? It seems to indicate that it is in the Site Manager page, but I think I saw that it wasn't elsewhere. and anyway I am incredulous.

Re:

pieterh 1255471332|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

and anyway I am incredulous.

Yes, DNS configuration leaves most people like this. It's not Wikidot's fault, the Internet was around before us.

My domain registrar, gandi.net, gives me full access to the DNS zone file. If yours does not, change registrar and transfer your domains. They are messing with you.

Again: this is not Wikidot's problem. You set your DNS to point to Wikidot.com, either to the domain name or IP address. You add the custom domain. If you did it right it works.

Feel free to tell us what you are actually trying and what happens and we'll walk you through getting it working. I have 30+ domain names working on wikidot.com and it's pretty simple now.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

morningbird 1255524332|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Well, the issue I'm having is simply that they are demanding the DNS server name that looks like ns1.blah.com and ns2.blah.com. Which has worked with all my other sites just fine. I did try to put ns1.wikidot.com & etc. in there but it gave me an error saying it's not in the registry. Then, it took me two phonecalls and three chat sessions to explain to their technical services department what I wanted them to do, and then I got a little ugly when they told me I had to pay extra for the tool to do it and they said they would change it for me using the CNAME and IP address.
So they changed it. Supposedly. But things are acting weird and I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing on my end or what. But when I go to set it up in my site manager, it says it doesn't resolve to a valid IP address, but I look at my domain info the right IP address is there.

You're right, I am definitely going to have to get a new domain host. It might be worth it to call their customer service back again if I was only going to do one site here, but I'm like a crazy cat lady with websites.

I guess the search is on.

But out of curiosity. Why can't you set it up with the DNS name? I've never encountered a situation like this before. I'm not saying it's abnormal or wrong, just that in my journeys I've never encountered it. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one who has encountered this issue.

morningbird 1255524447|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

In my new host, what should I be looking for under features to ensure that I can set it up this way? What terminology should I search for?

psc2 1255525213|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

@ morning bird.
give Carl craven a pm. i get the impression (from his previous posts above) he really knows about this stuff.
He doesn't watch this page so may be unaware that you are in desperate need for informed help.

morningbird 1255530113|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks for the suggestions and help. I am all sorted! Once I got over my indigence at being asked to pay extra for total DNS control I realized it was only $3 extra so I figured I'd go ahead and do it and it was simple as pie.

I am still curious as to the reason the DNS name can't be provided. It would make it all so simpler. Is it a security issue? Or is there maybe the server runs on a different operating system than the servers I generally use?

pieterh 1255610083|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Morningbird, I'm going to write a blog article on this. It is complex, messy, and confuses everyone who has to work with it, including me.

Basically you can use DNS names for subdomains but not for domains. This is a DNS thing, not Wikidot. So let's say you register example.com. You can set-up a number of "DNS records", including an A (host 'address') record that provides an IP address for a name. You always have an A record for a host name and it must always specify an IP address, not a name.

Which gives us a DNS entry like this:

@ 10800 IN A 67.228.37.26

And many web clients will try to make this more friendly. The '@' stands for 'the hostname', thus example.com. The 10800 is the timeout (time-to-live) which specifies how long this DNS entry is cached by servers between you and example.com.

Next, we can define subdomains like 'www.example.com' and 'blog.example.com'. You can define these either using address records, or using canonical name (CNAME) records.

A CNAME record refers to another DNS name, which can be 'wikidot.com' or 'www.wikidot.com' (these are equivalent here). So:

blog 10800 IN CNAME www.wikidot.com.
www 10800 IN CNAME www.wikidot.com.

This is, again, the raw DNS record format. Most web interfaces try to make it simpler for you.

So, what does this mean for your custom domain?

• If you want to use the hostname (example.com) you must define an A record that points to Wikidot's IP address
• If you want to use a subdomain (www.example.com) you can define a CNAME record that points to www.wikidot.com

One way for Wikidot to solve this problem is to simply ban the use of hostnames. Other services do this but I find it annoying because it means when people type the hostname without 'www' they land on whatever web site the actual A record points to.

Tell me if this helps. I'll write up the article now.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

morningbird 1255615901|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks for all of that! My curiosity is somewhat satisfied. I look forward to your article.

I think I did everything correct

Birch 1257277137|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I made the changes on the hosting side….
I made the changes on the wikidot side….

I never received any error messages but….I am still stuck with …..".wikidot.com" and the end of every page.

How long should I wait for the changes? (I know it depends on various factors but how long is TOO long?)

My site is www.turnerstips.ca

Thanks in advance!

Re: I think I did everything correct

pieterh 1257337334|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

@Birch, your setup was correct though I added "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site" (I'm supersuperadmin, with access to all sites).

You should find that anyone going to a wikidot page now gets redirected properly to turnersips.ca.

-Pieter
Wikidot Inc.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

you did!

Phil Chett 1257277863|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

cos when i click on a link i get:-

http://turnerstips.ca/answers

Thanks guys/gals.

Birch 1257345285|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Works great now!

I guess I just had to wait…a lesson in patience!

@pierterh, what are the advantages/disadvantages to having "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site" checked?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Thanks guys/gals.

pieterh 1257354965|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

what are the advantages/disadvantages to having "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site" checked?

What it says on the admin page: requests to the .wikidot.com site name will get redirected to the custom domain.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

Recover my domain

iRajeevsingh 1258062864|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hi, I configured my custom domain and I forgot to renew my domain name. I have a new domain but I cannot browse to my wiki, it goes to godaddy landing page.

The wiki is listed under my account, but there is no way to manage it.Is there a way to configure a different domain.

Re: Recover my domain

Phil Chett 1258067062|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

when you made the wiki it had a wikidot address.
yoursite.wikidot.com

do you remember what it was called?
because that will get you there

Re: Recover my domain

Ed Johnson 1258069445|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Does checking "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site." cause problems in this situation or does yoursite.wikidot.com still work?

-Ed

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Free Wikidot Applications · Your Shared Photo Gallery · Your Personal Blog

Re: Recover my domain

iRajeevsingh 1258069455|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I actually forgot but googled and found it. Thank you Phil, You rock. :)

Re: Recover my domain

Phil Chett 1258070278|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

You rock.

only when i'm feeling insecure :-)
_(often)

Re: Recover my domain

leiger 1258095506|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Does checking "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site." cause problems in this situation or does yoursite.wikidot.com still work?

-Ed

Good question, and something I'd also like to have an answer to if possible.

If it does cause problems, then a simple workaround would be to prevent a page from using the "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site" setting if it has the ManageSite module on it.

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— Shane, Wikidot.com Community Admin

• CycloDS Revolution
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Re: Recover my domain

pieterh 1258125699|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I've checked: the setting does indeed cause problems if the domain goes away or gets bad DNS settings.

We'll make the /noredirect/true option work to disable the "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site" option on a page.

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The Wikidot Blog | My other works

Custom Domains and Privacy

EricT 1258490641|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I've been using my domain for going on a year now and I am so naive about this stuff but I thought I'd bring this up. I know the experts here are well aware of it but for others they may want to know.

Someone has been very interested in my domain as of late I guess and I got these google alerts for url appraisal and other things as well as a Whois search. But anyway I realized that there was all my personal information just splashed up on a page for anyone to find. I'm a private person and I don't want my home address and everything else accessible because someone searches my domain..but it's required to be accessible.

Anyway, to make a long story short I went ahead and purchased a private domain option through Godaddy. That uses a "domain by proxy" service. You still have complete control over your domain it's just that they come up as the information.

I don't know how this works for other domain services but for godaddy it was as simple as choosing to make the domain private and then paying for it. I already checked and it worked immediately. My info was there one minute and gone the next.

This may not be important to anyone but me but I thought I'd bring it up! Your email and everything is searchable this way.

last edited on 1258490693|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by EricT + show more

Re: Custom Domains and Privacy

Ed Johnson 1258496592|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I don't know what GoDaddy's fee is but for what it's worth, 1and1 provides private registration for free. I have no affiliation with them but have used their hosting for a few years and find their hosting and domain registration fees very reasonable and the service has been good when I needed it.

-Ed

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Free Wikidot Applications · Your Shared Photo Gallery · Your Personal Blog

Re: Custom Domains and Privacy

David Marseilles 1258505288|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Wow, that's a pretty big savings. Bookmarked.

EricT 1258502856|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I wish I'd known that before, Ed! This was about 9 bucks a year.

gerdami 1258543349|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Gandi.net is cheap, starts from €6 excl VAT for .info, €12€ excl VAT for .com, … privacy included.
DNS settings are easy to configure.

Gandi.net est basé à Paris (et à Londres) et son interface est disponible en français. Ca peut aider …

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gerdami - Visit Handbook en Français - Rate this howto:import-simple-excel-tables-into-wikidot up!

Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

1zain1 1259771306|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hi,

I am new to Wikidot. I just created a website at wikidot.com.

I have a domain name from nbinternet.com and they also provide for our e-mail accounts.

Now if I set up my Custom Domain and point my XYZ.com to ABC.wikidot.com, will it affect my e-mails (receiving and outgoing)?

I spoke to the customer care people of nbinternet and they told me that sometimes when the domain is pointed, their customers have lost e-mails.

Is it true? If I custom domain will it affect my e-mails? Has it happened with wikidot.com before?

Please help me as I dont know what to do.

Re: Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

RobElliott 1259772757|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

You should have some sort of dashboard at your host where you can configure the dns of your domain to stay with the host's mailserver but point to the custom domain for everything else. I am with 1&1 in the uk and the tool they provide for doing this is shown below and it allows me to keep email coming through quite happily via 1&1.

Of course yours won't be the same but there should be something similar.

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Re: Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

1zain1 1259775960|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thank you so much!

I shall let my host know about this and try this out.

Thanks again!

Re: Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

1zain1 1259852922|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

I asked my host to do the steps for domain pointing, and they finished doing it.
Now I am getting my e-mails with out a problem.
Thank you so much.

I have another problem now.

I tried doing the custom domain setting in Wikidot: Manage Site.

I put:

For Custom Domain: n-tsi.com
For 301 redirects: www.n-tsi.com

But an error message came up::

Don't panic, but
Sorry, it seams that the new domain does not resolve to a valid IP address. See the tips at the bottom of this page.

I tried

For Custom Domain: www.n-tsi.com
For 301 redirects: n-tsi.com

But the same error message is popping up.

I dont what I am doing wrong..

Please help me…

Re: Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

RobElliott 1259853990|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

The format I use is:

For Custom Domain: www.n-tsi.com
For 301 redirects: n-tsi.com

I get this error message on almost every occasion I have set up a custom domain. But then I leave it overnight and come back to it and it works. I think the changes at your host take a while to flow through the internet. So leave it a few hours and then try.

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Re: Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

1zain1 1259854488|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Alright! Will wait then…

Thanks you so much!! :)

Re: Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

1zain1 1259936543|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hey Rob,

I am still getting the same error message.

Its been 24hrs now since my host did the domain pointing.

But when I try to change the Custom Domain Setting in Wikidot, I am getting the same error message as before.

Don't panic, but
Sorry, it seams that the new domain does not resolve to a valid IP address. See the tips at the bottom of this page.

When I enter: www.n-tsi.com in the address bar, its getting redirected to www.ntsi.wikidot.com

But I have not changed any settings in the custom domain.

Am I doing something wrong?

What should I do now?

Thanks in advance…

Re: Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

1zain1 1259947709|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hey Rob,

I just got the problem fixed and changed the custom domain.

My host had named the CNAME :: ntsi.wikidot.com and not wikidot.com

So that was causing the problem…

Thank you so much for all your help! :)

Take care!!! :)

Re: Help: Custom Domain and e-mails

leiger 1260318058|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hey 1zain1, thanks for returning to let us know how you solved the problem! Much appreciated :)

I've got to tackle this domain monster soon, myself.

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— Shane, Wikidot.com Community Admin

• CycloDS Revolution
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