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Bulk Email Server Guide: Masking domains
You don't want links in your emails pointing to your main domain, do you? With domain masking, you can change that!
In this step, you will have to connect over SSH in case you already closed your connection. If you ever used a CMS like WordPress, Joomla, ... you already know what .htaccess files are. In our case, we need them to redirect your sending domains to your main domain where Mumara is installed.
Why is this good?
Without domain masking, all your emails will have links that are pointing to your main server and that's not good. With active domain masking links in your emails will use your sending domain. So for example, if your email will be sent from domain3.tld all links in that email will be masked as link.domain3.tld or any other domain.
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In Mumara go to 'Domain Masking>View Masking Domains' and click the check mark in the upper right side. This will check if all your domain redirects are working. If you followed this guide correctly they should work.
Having problems?
Please use comments below for your questions. This way other users can benefit from provided answers. Please read this first!
This tutorial is a part of the complete Do It Yourself Bulk Email Server Guide. If you are interested in starting with email marketing or want to improve your delivery, open, and click rates I recommend that you follow it from the beginning. Almost 15 years in this business and many, many tests show that this is the best long-run solution for every mass email sender with a double opt-in, scraped, or bought list.
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Here are most frequent problems users have in this step.
My masking domains don’t work
I suggest you use subdomain.domain.com for masking. For example info.exaple.com. Be sure you set A records for masking subdomain. If you set AAAA records to make sure they are working. Now, copy htaccess.txt you got from Mumara to your web root folder.
Same problem here.
I used link.mtadomain.com, A record of link.mtadomain.com points to ip of primarydomain.com, copied .htaccess to /home/admin/web/link.mtadomain.com and /home/admin/web/link.mtadomain.com/public_html, works ok on browser, mumara test fails.
The most common problem is that main server doesn’t see the DNS changes yet. Can you ping link.mtadomain.com from the main server?
If that’s not a problem;
– try to install lynx (yum -y install lynx) and see if it works there (lynx URL),
– test if your .htaccess works by putting some random stuff inside like ‘dksjdjs’. You should get an error on page load.
– if you are using cloudflare, try turning off IP masking (gray cloud)
– edit index.html file in your subdomain web folder and see if you see the changes in your browser. maybe another web dir is used?
The most common problem is that main server doesn’t see the DNS changes yet. Can you ping link.mtadomain.com from the main server?
Yes and the reply is from the primarydomain.com ip because the A record is set to it.
If that’s not a problem;
– try to install lynx (yum -y install lynx) and see if it works there (lynx URL),
If A record of the link.mtadomain.com is pointed to primarydomain.com then the page shows primarydomain.com page.
If A record of the link.mtadomain.com is pointed to mtadomain.com then the page shows mtadomain.com page.
– test if your .htaccess works by putting some random stuff inside like ‘dksjdjs’. You should get an error on page load.
If A record of the link.mtadomain.com is pointed to primarydomain.com then the page shows primarydomain.com page.
If A record of the link.mtadomain.com is pointed to mtadomain.com then the page shows 500 internal error.
– if you are using cloudflare, try turning off IP masking (gray cloud)
Had been grey all the time.
– edit index.html file in your subdomain web folder and see if you see the changes in your browser. maybe another web dir is used?
Yes changes can be seen, the directory is correct.
I made it work with CNAME, is it recommended to use CNAME?
By using cloudfare, mumara test success but no domain masking
By using namecheap, mumara test failed but doman masked perfectly :/
what mumara test?
There is a button to test domain masking in mumara at the domain masking tab > setup domain masking > test masking, i setup with cloudfare with orange cloud on and page rules, mumara will test the link and the result is success with both .htaccess and cname. Cloudfare don’t allow domain masking though, so it will redirect to maindomain.com. While using namecheap url forwarding, domain masked on the browser but in the murama it says test domain masking failed lol.
Traffic from masking domain must be directed to main domain. But not all. If you go to mtadomain.com a normal page should load. If you go for example to mtadomain.com/unsubscribe.php you should be redirected to main domain.
True, but from my understanding masking domain means even though the user is directed to maindomain.com, the address bar still shows mtadomain.com 😀
Please has anyone got masking domain done successfully? Please kindly put me through how you did it because I have tried both htaccess and CNAME without success. Thanks in advance.
htaccess
1. create A record
2. create account for subdomain
3. copy htaccess.txt and rename it to .htaccess to web root
cname
1. create cname
that’s it. make sure your DNS records are in order and it will work
Does the masking domain have to point to an ip?
yes
to the main server , right? I did that but still on testing masking in mumara, it is showing ‘Domain Masking Failed’ by cname. i have also created cname record with subdomain of masking domain pointing to the primary domain.
please provide screenshot of your dns records
Pls provide full steps. This is just not happening. Thanks
can you ping your masking domain from your home computer? what happens if you open it in your browser?
When i ping the masking domain from the main server or the sending server, in both cases it returns back from the main server ip.
I also have big problems making these masking domains work. Could you make a more thorough guide for it. nomatter what i do, it never get verified either with a CNAME or .htacess.
as it turned out the problem is usually with hosting as all managed to get it working after switching