URL's in a shopsite developed website.

[queenofangels]

Using shopsite pro and customized templates do all shopsit sites have the host name for the shopping cart and other add ons such as gift certificate, etc....

[Jim]

What do you mean by the "host name".

If your host installs ShopSite stores in a shared environment it is often the case that they will have the url for shopping cart (search, registration etc) be something like http://hostdomain.com/storename/sc instead of just store.domain.com/sc. This is particularly true for some of the low end price range hosting companies.

Other hosts install a separate set of cgis for each store and allow the shopping cart (etc) urls to remain the store.domain.com/sc.

If you want the checkout screen to maintain store.domain.com and have a secure url such as https://store.domain.com/sc/billing.cgi then you will need to purchase a secure certificate for your particular domain name.

It may be more comforting to a shopper to maintain the same domain name through out the entire shopping process, but it is no less secure if you use a hosts shared secure certificate than one specifically for your domain name. There is additional initial and annual cost for getting a secure certificate for your own domain name, so if your store is low volume it may not be worth the cost. But it does give shoppers more confidence in a store that goes to the extra effort to get their own secure certificate.

In addition to purchasing a secure certificate it must be installed on the server by the hosting company. The low cost host often don't want to be bothered with doing this so they may not do it or may require your store to be on particular servers where they will allow it.

[queenofangels]

thanks for the info. I finally figured out what I was doing wrong when I started developing this site. I've gone back and regenerated everything with a theme and am now well on my way to completeing the web site.