What is Web site redirection?

Applies To: Windows SBS 2008

When you sign up for Office Live Small Business, you are provided with a Business Web site that contains basic content that is created and hosted by Office Live Small Business. The address of the Business Web site will be a fourth-level domain name (for example, *.*.officelive.com). If you already own a domain name, you can use it with Microsoft Office Live. You can redirect your domain name to Office Live Small Business with a brief process called Web site redirection. Web site redirection is the process of telling your current domain name registrar to point your domain name to your new Office Live Small Business Web site. This is also known as partial domain redelegation or Web site only redirection.

If you purchased a domain name or configured a domain name by using the Internet Address Management Wizard, then the Set up your Office Live Small Business Web site Wizard follows the Web site only redirection process to change the address of your Business Web site from *.*.officelive.com to yourdomain.com.

When you opt to direct Web site only traffic for your domain name to your Business Web site at Office Live Small Business, the DNS records are changed to direct Web site traffic to your new Business Web site that is hosted by Office Live Small Business. After you redirect your Web site, visitors to the address www.contoso.com will view the content at your Business Web site that is hosted by Office Live Small Business. Content that was previously hosted on www.contoso.com is no longer viewable on the Internet. The DNS settings for your e-mail and Remote Web Workplace are not altered, and they continue to point to your server running Windows SBS 2008.

It is important that you save any Web site content that you want to preserve before you do Web site only redirection.

If you do not opt for Web site only redirection when you run the Set up your Office Live Business Web sites Wizard, you can later redirect your Web site manually by following the instructions in the topic Redirect my domain to my Office Live Small Business Web site.