Random thoughts on art, technology, stuff, and occasionally Real Estate: To Mask Or Not To Mask, That Is The Question

To Mask Or Not To Mask, That Is The Question

To mask or not to mask, that is the question.  And keep in mind, just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should.

The issues are easier grasped by example so, to illustrate, I have created two test blogs:  http://www.clutteredshelf.com  and http://www.frayedcuffs.com  .  For the purpose of this example, http://www.frayedcuffs.com  will be the good guy, http://www.clutteredshelf.com  will be the evil twin.

Take a look at http://www.frayedcuffs.com    The domain name frayedcuffs.com was parked on the Typepad blog using PairNIC.  Do you see the short blogroll in the left colum?  Click on any of those blogs, then look at the address bar of your browser.  If you clicked on Rain City Guide, you saw http://www.raincityguide.com  in your address bar.

Now go to http://www.clutteredshelf.com   The domain name cluttershelf.com is forwarded to the Typepad blog and masked.  Now click on Rain City Guide in the blogroll.  What do you see in your browser's address bar?  It still says http://www.clutteredshelf.com , right? Click on any of the sites in the blogroll, no matter what link you click on, your browser's address bar still reads http://www.clutteredshelf.com

Now, seriously, do you think Mr. Dustin Luther would enjoy seeing his creation displayed under the URL http://www.clutteredshelf.com ?  Or Mr. Miller?  Or Mr. Swann?

If it were your website or blog, would you want it displayed under someone else's URL?

Now you have grasped the single biggest issue with masking.

Try something else.  Hit View -> Source (in Firefox it's View -> Page Source) and take a look at the source code.  Even if you know absolutely nothing about html, you can see that the source code showing for http://www.clutteredshelf.com  is only about 14 lines referencing a "frameset".  Now look at the source code for http://www.frayedcuffs.com .  Everything is visible, including META tags.  I'll leave the significance of that to the SEO experts.

All that said --- there is one area where I think masking is a good idea:  Single property websites.  On a single property website you will probably not have a blogroll.  You will probably have a limited number of links, and all of those links will most likely be information you created about that particular property, 

8 comments • Cheryl Johnson • May 16 2007 09:13PM

Comments

Coming back to this when I am not tired since I think this is part of the problem I am having. :)
Posted by Debi Braulik Federal Way Homes For Sale Federal Way WA Search Federal Way Homes (www.kingpiercehomes.com Keller Williams Realty ) over 4 years ago
hmmmm.....masking in my mind is a cheaper way then paying for extra domains with my hosting.  There are ways that allowing websites to get out masking domains..    
Posted by Blue Ridge Ga Real Estate >> Real Property in Blue Ridge Georgia (United Country Landmasters) over 4 years ago
Doug:  I think masking is a good idea for single property websites.  On a single property website you will probably not have a blogroll.  You will probably have a limited number of links, and all of those links will most likely be information you created about that particular property..... I should have thought to say that when I wrote the blog ... there I just added it.
Posted by Cheryl Johnson, Bob Taylor Properties, Inc., Los Angeles, CA over 4 years ago
I mask because I don't know how to get my URL over to Typepad.  I use a yahoo domains masked forward.  How do you get it over like NELA, CJ?
Posted by Jumbo Mortgage Capital in California/858-777-9751 over 4 years ago

Brian -- What you need to do is map instead of mask.

NELA was registered at pairNic -- based on this sentence in one of TypePad's help files  "We highly recommend pairNIC because it is easy to use and takes much less knowledge of advanced DNS options."  I found the pairNic "parking" (aka mapping) function is easy to use as advertised.

Here are TypePad Help File instructions on "Domain Mapping" with GoDaddy

Maybe in the next few days I'll play around with mapping a test Typepad blog/GoDaddy domain, and report back.

Posted by Cheryl Johnson, Bob Taylor Properties, Inc., Los Angeles, CA over 4 years ago
Thanks, CJ.  That makes sense.  Map instead of a mask.
Posted by Jumbo Mortgage Capital in California/858-777-9751 over 4 years ago
Brian - Here you go - TypePad and GoDaddy: Don't MASK it, MAP it!  And especially for you  TypePad-GoDaddy: Conversion of the Masked  :-)
Posted by Cheryl Johnson, Bob Taylor Properties, Inc., Los Angeles, CA over 4 years ago
If you want, you can break out of the frame use by a mask by adding a 'target = "_top"' or 'target="_blank"' directive to your a href links.
Posted by Nat over 4 years ago

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