help linking store to domain

[jofromidaho]

Hello,
I have created a store in bigcommerce and want to link it to my main domain hosted at vodahost. My domain is www.spiritbeadsjewelry.com. The instructions I received from Big Commerce was to move my store to www.store.spiritbeadsjewelry.com, which I did from my Big Commerce control panel. I followed their instructions and created a Cname in my vodahost control panel that points to my store at store-986a8.mybigcommerce.com. I went to Blue Voda to edit the menu button for my store and have tried numerous different addresses in the url box for my store button, but after republishing the index page, the store button will not take me to my store. I opened a support ticket last Friday, and am getting no help from tech support. I have watched the subdomain videos and spent hours searching through the support forum. I am totally frustrated and not very happy with the lack of support from Vodahost. Can you please tell what I am doing wrong?

[Vasili]

Re: Need help linking my store to my main domain

Why pay $24.99/mo. for a cart at BigCommerce when you have many to choose from FREE as a VodaHost customer? Matter of fact, OpenCart in Fantastico! is most similar and has more features and capabilities than anything from BigCommerce!

The store has to be hosted at VodaHost in order to use any links as your are attempting (as if it were installed on a sub-domain on your Main domain at VodaHost: http://store.spiritbeadsjewelry.com) ... since it is not hosted at VodaHost but at BigCommerce.com, you can only link to it using URLs that are common: http://spiritbeadsjewlery.mybigcommerce.com as you have done in your BV Menu.
Keep in mind using these types of links and having your store hosted thus the full knowledge that all beneficial SEO values are lost and that these links to a separate hosted store represents nothing more than an 'outbound link' that adversely affects your Main site's SEO valuations.

You cannot forward a sub-domain to the store, as it does not have the same properties that a Domain has, nor is creating a CNAME a solution for they are generally only done to mask links, not create desinations - thus your earlier efforts have been useless.

My advice to you is to totally undo all your earlier efforts to create a cName and the like, to then properly create a sub-domain on your Primary Domain in the normal manual method as outlined in the Tutorials, and to then have BigCommerce install your store manually into this new, properly created sub-domain.
If they can't or won't, then take it as a sign that maybe you should re-think your choice of cart scripts to use, and take a second look at the various carts that can be auto-installed via Fantastico! in your cPanel for FREE (unlike BigCommerce with charges a monthly fee) ... maybe CUBE or even OpenCart if you're intimidated with osCommerce or even Soholaunch.

The Fantastico! feature will not only auto-install your choice of carts for FREE, it will also auto-create a sub-folder (not a sub-domain) on your Primary Domain, which is altogether better SEO-wise than a sub-domain.