hi
I want to run an ecommerce site and I want every store owners to get their short URL such as www.abc.com/<name>

what is this feature called? and is it hard to implement?

thanks in advance

Not sure about the name, sub-directories maybe?

If you are OK with creating them manually, some control panel will be sufficient (cPanel etc.)

hi
I want to run an ecommerce site and I want every store owners to get their short URL such as www.abc.com/<name>

what is this feature called? and is it hard to implement?


If you create a directory called "storename", then users will be able to access "www.abc.com/storename". (You may want to create a file "index.html" in that directory, rather than have the web server return its default).

The difficulty comes with managing the contents of those directories.

If you are keeping strict control of the kind of things that goes in there, then it's easy enough.

But if you want the store owners free to design whatever they want, you will need a way to have them upload data to their directories but not anyone else's; and if you want them to be able to run their own server-side scripts, you need to make sure those scripts can only affect their own data.

That's not hard to do, but it's even less hard to do wrong. That is, it requires knowledge and skill.

And when one of your customers installs some server script they acquired, and it doesn't work, or deletes their data, or whatever, their supplier might say it's the result of a fault on your web site. You need to be in a position to deal with the situation to your own satisfaction.

hi
I want to run an ecommerce site and I want every store owners to get their short URL such as www.abc.com/<name>

what is this feature called? and is it hard to implement?

i'm not sure ur question was clear enough? did u mean that u want to create them a sub-directory so they can place their files and data in?

or is it a link that leads to their profile or page ... etc? i mean like in some social networking websites somesite.com/someone will lead to the profile?

If each store owner needs it own independent application/space you need to create those directories, either manually or through your script.

If it is just their profile, you can use mod_rewrite if you are on a Linux/Apache platform.

It all depends what ecommerce software you want to run - if some custom-developed one you can redirect using .htaccess all requests to one file and parse it from there - for ex switching database for different user's store. For already existing software - like oscommerce you'd have to have some script to auto-install new stores under <name> directories. I mean copy base software files, setting up databases, files/directory permissions - good perl/python coder can help here.

hi
I want to run an ecommerce site and I want every store owners to get their short URL such as www.abc.com/<name>

This is a function of whatever ecommerce application software you end up choosing. Call the /<name> component of the URL their "store".

Some applications may be able to handle a more personalized hostname (what some refer to as a "sub-domain"), i.e.:

chickboots.abcstores.com
stereocity.abcstores.com
bobslawnmowershop.abcstores.com

and so on. Which is preferable is something of a matter of taste, although some might wish to debate the "SEO" value of either approach. One approach may further complicate providing SSL than the other.

abcstores.com/chickboots
abcstores.com/stereocity
abcstores.com/bobslawnmowershop

If you are planning on setting up any sort of a multi-user ecommerce site you should get some very competent help to advise you through the process.