From Joomla! Documentation
Although it's a best-practice to give every Website its own domain, Joomla! installation and database there can be special conditions in which a multi-site solution under a single Joomla! install is warranted.
Is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build web sites and powerful online applications. Download Joomla! Download and Install Joomla! In your own server or development environment. Is proud to present to you a series of Joomla! Here you can learn everything from the basics to more advanced subjects such as creating a multilingual web site and keeping your site up to date and secure.
- 3Implementation Procedure
- 3.4Add a Redirect
An Example Application
A small business, 'Johnson Candies', has two separate but related brands: Red Candy and Yellow Candy. They require a single Joomla!-based Website where both candy types are visible, each with its own home page on the Joomla! site which corresponds to the domains www.redjohnsoncandy.com and www.yellowjohnsoncandy.com.
Additionally, each brand and site requires its own design: a yellow template for one; a red template, for the other.
Benefits
By including both brands in a single Joomla! web installation, Johnson Candies is able to save editing time (only one login), share articles and data across both brands (or sites) and use a single feature, such as a Contact Us form, for both brands.
Implementation Procedure
Prepare Your Domains
Use a single domain for your hosting account, as normal. Create the required add-on domains in the control panel of your hosting account. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use www.redjohnsoncandy.com in addition to the base www.yellowjohnsoncandy.com domain name.
Install and Setup Joomla!
Install and setup Joomla! normally. Then develop articles, menus and modules for each site.
Create Templates
Next develop and install the necessary templates - one for each site that you wish to have. In the above example, you would create a template for red candy named Red Template and a template for yellow candy named Yellow Template. Once the templates are installed, assign them to the relevant menu items, using the Joomla! template manager in the Joomla! Administrator area.
Add a Redirect
Option #1: Create an .htaccess (Apache) redirect
NoteEnable SEF URLs in Joomla! First
One option is to use .htaccess (Apache) to redirect inquiries to a given domain to a specific Joomla! page.
Our goal is to redirect any inquries to the Red Candy domain name to a given page on the Joomla! site. In this example, we redirect any inquiries to www.redjohnsoncandy.com to a category-blog page. You would have previously assigned the 'red candy' template to this menu item, to create the illusion of a separate site.
Well, that works - but you can see the drawback immediately. Although the user is successfully viewing the Red Candy site, they will still see the Yellow Candy domain name. Unfortunately, if you are using both .htaccess and domain-parking (technically a redirect) - this is necessary in order to avoid creating a LOOP.
Option #2: Create a PHP Header Redirect
This solution has the benefit of keeping the illusion of separate domains/web sites apparent to the visitor. Instead of using .htaccess (Apache) for our redirect, we use one of the templates on the site.
In this example, the base domain is www.redjohnsoncandy.com. You have created a template for that area named Red Template. The trick is to open 'Red Template's' index.php file and add the following AS THE VERY FIRST LINES of the install's primary index.php.
Here's the benefit: The visitor will now be redirected to the appropriate Red Site page, that has the Red Template assigned to it only in the case where they have arrived at the 'red site' domain name. Otherwise, the conditional PHP rule is ignored, and the Yellow Site loads.
It is important to remember to request also de URI (url that follows the pure domain) so that you can make redirections to the same domain. When the URI is invisible in the url the variable becomes a '/' sign. That is why you have to compare your pure url with a '/' sign at the end. This way you´ll be able to make 301 redirects in the same domain. Otherwise you´ll create an infinite loop in the redirection process.
Option #3: Create a PHP Header Redirect, for multiple domains with specific domain redirects for custom templates
Solution for single webspace, with different domains, one Joomla install and depending on the user landing domain, redirects to a different default page. Paste following PHP code AS THE VERY FIRST THING in the install's primary index.php file. To assign another domain, just copy/past the 'if' function and edit it with the values of the other domain in the same fashion. Further to setup the template views, you will have to assign different module item/link alias and setup template views within the Joomla! template manager. The alias setting is needed when you use SEF settings.
How to Make a Joomla Website -This is a tutorial that will show you how you can build a Joomla website in just a few minutes.
Joomla belongs to a growing group of website management tools called Content Management Systems (CMS). Content management systems that include other popular options, such as WordPress and Drupal, take the complexity out of making a website.
Most CMS have their unique appeal. The most popular CMS, WordPress, offers its users ease of use and plenty of add-ons to enhance the platform.
Joomla on the other hand offers extreme customization and adaptability. Even though the platform boasts of an extensive array of options to drive its ability to offer users extreme customization, it does not sacrifice ease of use.
Accordingly, individuals, organizations, and businesses of all sizes adopt Joomla as their preferred CMS platform to build websites for just about any purpose. Follow our step-by-step guide below.
Hosting Your Joomla Website
When you decide to use the Joomla CMS to make a website, the very first thing you have to do is find a place to host your website. This can be a regular web host, or even your PC (localhost).
Both options are easy to use and you can use either depending on which is more convenient for you. Still, there are reasons why you may want to choose one option over another.
One reason is cost. Using your PC to host comes at no extra charge to you, whereas using a regular web host does carry a price tag. Make no mistake though, you would inevitably have to use a regular web host (in most occasions), when your website is ready to go live for anyone on the web to access.
In any case, using your PC to host your website while you work on or build it is convenient and is the cheaper option.
Using a Regular Web Host
- Choose your preferred, reliable web hosting company. We recommend Bluehost.
- Purchase an appropriate web hosting plan
- Use 1-click installer to install Joomla in your control panel
- Choose admin details and login to your administrator control panel
These steps are applicable for most popular web hosts. For some hosts however, setting up Joomla can be a bit complicated. Nevertheless, the customer service of the web host can be of invaluable help in such scenarios.
Using Your PC (localhost)
- Download and install WAMPSERVER for windows to your PC
- Download Joomla, unzip the downloaded package, then copy the unzipped content into the WWW sub-folder in your PC's WAMP directory
- Launch the server by doing the following:
- Double-click the icon of the server on your desktop
- Left click the icon of the server in your notification area (default location is the bottom right of your screen)
- Click on 'Start All Services' in the dropdown menu that pops u
- Wait for the 'dial' to turn white
- Right-click on the icon of the server in your notification area, then click on 'Localhost'
- The above action should lead you to the default server's page on your PC's web browser
- In the server's page, edit the web address in the address bar of the PC web browser from http://localhost to http://localhost/joomla/adminstrator and press 'Enter' on your keyboard
- In the 'Main Configuration' page that loads, fill out requisite information, especially the admin details you would need to login to your administrator control panel
Building Your Joomla Website
Now that you have set up Joomla on a host (either localhost or a standard web host) and have logged into your administrator panel, you are ready to start building your Joomla website from the scratch.
Plan Site Structure
The very first step to take when building your Joomla website is to have a plan of your site structure. You do not have to use a complex organization software like Visio, all you really need is the good ol' combination of pen and paper to make a rough outline.
Another advantage of Bluehost is that they make it so easy to set up a joomla website using their built in tools.
Furthermore, you need not be fanciful. Your structure should be clear, logical, and intuitive. Your site structure is the skeleton of your website, and having it makes further development a breeze.
Add Content
With your site structure established, you should proceed to adding the content (flesh) of your website. All content on a Joomla site are stored in the 'Articles' section of your Joomla administrator panel.
Steps
- Create relevant categories
- Navigate to Content, then Category Manager in your admin panel
- Use the default 'Uncategorized' category for static pages like Our Services, About Us, Contact Us
- Create an appropriate category, if you intend to have multiple related posts/articles: For example, 'Latest News' categories to contain all news bits articles
- You can also create multiple categories if you so desire: For example, 'Technology' category for technology-related articles, 'Lifestyle' category for lifestyle-related articles, 'Finance' category for finance-related articles
- Create articles to populate the categories you have earlier created
- Navigate to Content, then Article Manager
- Click the 'New' button. In the page that loads,
- Enter your article title (e.g. About Us, How to Use A Fitbit Tracker)
- Select the appropriate category (e.g. Uncategorized for About Us, Technology for How to Use A Fitbit Tracker)
- Enter the body of the article/article text
- Click 'Save'
Create Menu
You have your content up on your website based on your site structure. That is great.
Now, you have to think about how your visitors can easily navigate or move from one end of your site to another. This is where a navigation menu comes into play.
A menu is a collection of links to vital pages of your site, which helps your visitors navigate your site with ease and clarity.
Steps
- Navigate to Menus, then Menu Manager
- Create menu items in the default 'Main Menu' (for example, a menu item called 'About Us' that links to your About Us article)
Noteworthy Information
By default, each menu item will display featured articles in a blog layout. For example, when you navigate to the menu manager, you would find a ‘default menu item' that links to your home page that exhibits this behavior.
Prepare Your Domains
Use a single domain for your hosting account, as normal. Create the required add-on domains in the control panel of your hosting account. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use www.redjohnsoncandy.com in addition to the base www.yellowjohnsoncandy.com domain name.
Install and Setup Joomla!
Install and setup Joomla! normally. Then develop articles, menus and modules for each site.
Create Templates
Next develop and install the necessary templates - one for each site that you wish to have. In the above example, you would create a template for red candy named Red Template and a template for yellow candy named Yellow Template. Once the templates are installed, assign them to the relevant menu items, using the Joomla! template manager in the Joomla! Administrator area.
Add a Redirect
Option #1: Create an .htaccess (Apache) redirect
NoteEnable SEF URLs in Joomla! First
One option is to use .htaccess (Apache) to redirect inquiries to a given domain to a specific Joomla! page.
Our goal is to redirect any inquries to the Red Candy domain name to a given page on the Joomla! site. In this example, we redirect any inquiries to www.redjohnsoncandy.com to a category-blog page. You would have previously assigned the 'red candy' template to this menu item, to create the illusion of a separate site.
Well, that works - but you can see the drawback immediately. Although the user is successfully viewing the Red Candy site, they will still see the Yellow Candy domain name. Unfortunately, if you are using both .htaccess and domain-parking (technically a redirect) - this is necessary in order to avoid creating a LOOP.
Option #2: Create a PHP Header Redirect
This solution has the benefit of keeping the illusion of separate domains/web sites apparent to the visitor. Instead of using .htaccess (Apache) for our redirect, we use one of the templates on the site.
In this example, the base domain is www.redjohnsoncandy.com. You have created a template for that area named Red Template. The trick is to open 'Red Template's' index.php file and add the following AS THE VERY FIRST LINES of the install's primary index.php.
Here's the benefit: The visitor will now be redirected to the appropriate Red Site page, that has the Red Template assigned to it only in the case where they have arrived at the 'red site' domain name. Otherwise, the conditional PHP rule is ignored, and the Yellow Site loads.
It is important to remember to request also de URI (url that follows the pure domain) so that you can make redirections to the same domain. When the URI is invisible in the url the variable becomes a '/' sign. That is why you have to compare your pure url with a '/' sign at the end. This way you´ll be able to make 301 redirects in the same domain. Otherwise you´ll create an infinite loop in the redirection process.
Option #3: Create a PHP Header Redirect, for multiple domains with specific domain redirects for custom templates
Solution for single webspace, with different domains, one Joomla install and depending on the user landing domain, redirects to a different default page. Paste following PHP code AS THE VERY FIRST THING in the install's primary index.php file. To assign another domain, just copy/past the 'if' function and edit it with the values of the other domain in the same fashion. Further to setup the template views, you will have to assign different module item/link alias and setup template views within the Joomla! template manager. The alias setting is needed when you use SEF settings.
How to Make a Joomla Website -This is a tutorial that will show you how you can build a Joomla website in just a few minutes.
Joomla belongs to a growing group of website management tools called Content Management Systems (CMS). Content management systems that include other popular options, such as WordPress and Drupal, take the complexity out of making a website.
Most CMS have their unique appeal. The most popular CMS, WordPress, offers its users ease of use and plenty of add-ons to enhance the platform.
Joomla on the other hand offers extreme customization and adaptability. Even though the platform boasts of an extensive array of options to drive its ability to offer users extreme customization, it does not sacrifice ease of use.
Accordingly, individuals, organizations, and businesses of all sizes adopt Joomla as their preferred CMS platform to build websites for just about any purpose. Follow our step-by-step guide below.
Hosting Your Joomla Website
When you decide to use the Joomla CMS to make a website, the very first thing you have to do is find a place to host your website. This can be a regular web host, or even your PC (localhost).
Both options are easy to use and you can use either depending on which is more convenient for you. Still, there are reasons why you may want to choose one option over another.
One reason is cost. Using your PC to host comes at no extra charge to you, whereas using a regular web host does carry a price tag. Make no mistake though, you would inevitably have to use a regular web host (in most occasions), when your website is ready to go live for anyone on the web to access.
In any case, using your PC to host your website while you work on or build it is convenient and is the cheaper option.
Using a Regular Web Host
- Choose your preferred, reliable web hosting company. We recommend Bluehost.
- Purchase an appropriate web hosting plan
- Use 1-click installer to install Joomla in your control panel
- Choose admin details and login to your administrator control panel
These steps are applicable for most popular web hosts. For some hosts however, setting up Joomla can be a bit complicated. Nevertheless, the customer service of the web host can be of invaluable help in such scenarios.
Using Your PC (localhost)
- Download and install WAMPSERVER for windows to your PC
- Download Joomla, unzip the downloaded package, then copy the unzipped content into the WWW sub-folder in your PC's WAMP directory
- Launch the server by doing the following:
- Double-click the icon of the server on your desktop
- Left click the icon of the server in your notification area (default location is the bottom right of your screen)
- Click on 'Start All Services' in the dropdown menu that pops u
- Wait for the 'dial' to turn white
- Right-click on the icon of the server in your notification area, then click on 'Localhost'
- The above action should lead you to the default server's page on your PC's web browser
- In the server's page, edit the web address in the address bar of the PC web browser from http://localhost to http://localhost/joomla/adminstrator and press 'Enter' on your keyboard
- In the 'Main Configuration' page that loads, fill out requisite information, especially the admin details you would need to login to your administrator control panel
Building Your Joomla Website
Now that you have set up Joomla on a host (either localhost or a standard web host) and have logged into your administrator panel, you are ready to start building your Joomla website from the scratch.
Plan Site Structure
The very first step to take when building your Joomla website is to have a plan of your site structure. You do not have to use a complex organization software like Visio, all you really need is the good ol' combination of pen and paper to make a rough outline.
Another advantage of Bluehost is that they make it so easy to set up a joomla website using their built in tools.
Furthermore, you need not be fanciful. Your structure should be clear, logical, and intuitive. Your site structure is the skeleton of your website, and having it makes further development a breeze.
Add Content
With your site structure established, you should proceed to adding the content (flesh) of your website. All content on a Joomla site are stored in the 'Articles' section of your Joomla administrator panel.
Steps
- Create relevant categories
- Navigate to Content, then Category Manager in your admin panel
- Use the default 'Uncategorized' category for static pages like Our Services, About Us, Contact Us
- Create an appropriate category, if you intend to have multiple related posts/articles: For example, 'Latest News' categories to contain all news bits articles
- You can also create multiple categories if you so desire: For example, 'Technology' category for technology-related articles, 'Lifestyle' category for lifestyle-related articles, 'Finance' category for finance-related articles
- Create articles to populate the categories you have earlier created
- Navigate to Content, then Article Manager
- Click the 'New' button. In the page that loads,
- Enter your article title (e.g. About Us, How to Use A Fitbit Tracker)
- Select the appropriate category (e.g. Uncategorized for About Us, Technology for How to Use A Fitbit Tracker)
- Enter the body of the article/article text
- Click 'Save'
Create Menu
You have your content up on your website based on your site structure. That is great.
Now, you have to think about how your visitors can easily navigate or move from one end of your site to another. This is where a navigation menu comes into play.
A menu is a collection of links to vital pages of your site, which helps your visitors navigate your site with ease and clarity.
Steps
- Navigate to Menus, then Menu Manager
- Create menu items in the default 'Main Menu' (for example, a menu item called 'About Us' that links to your About Us article)
Noteworthy Information
By default, each menu item will display featured articles in a blog layout. For example, when you navigate to the menu manager, you would find a ‘default menu item' that links to your home page that exhibits this behavior.
However, you can change the menu item to display a static page or single article. For example, you may want to make the ‘default menu item' display a single 'Welcome' article as your homepage.
Follow the steps below to do this:
- Click on the menu item (for example, 'Home' that is the default menu item)
- Then click on 'Select' that is next to the Menu Item Type field
- Click on Articles, then Single Article in the popup window that appears
- Click on the 'Select/Change' button located on the right under ‘Required Settings'
- Choose the article you wish to display as the static page or single article in the popup window that emerges
You may also want to create a menu item that links to a category. For example, you can create a menu item 'Latest News' that links to the 'Latest News' category. Therefore, clicking the Latest News menu item will direct the visitor to the articles in the 'Latest News' category.
To do this all you have to do is choose the menu type when you navigate to Article, then Category Blog.
Position the Menu
You are almost done now. You only have to position your menu appropriately on your site and voila you are done.
An important point to note about positioning menus on Joomla is that Joomla templates use modules to arrange content in various positions on a page.
Joomla Website Builder
Steps
Joomla Free Website
- Create the module for the menu
- Navigate to Extensions, then Module Manager
- Click 'New' on the Module Manager page
- Select 'Menu' from the Module Type popup window that appears
- Append a title for the Menu and then click on the ‘Hide Title' button
- Select a position for the module you created
- Note that the description for each of the positions varies between templates: For example, the top position may be labeled 'top' in some templates, or 'position-1,' or some other less apparent label in others
- After setting the position, set the ‘Status' to Published
- Under the Basic Options, select the appropriate menu name (for example, Main Menu if you are positioning the Main Menu)
- Click on 'Save & Close'
Important Information
You can create modules for other menus that can exist anywhere on the page. If you want a module you created to display on just one or a number of pages (for example, on only the Home Page).
To do this, follow the instructions below:
- Navigate to the Menu Assignment section for the module
- Select the option 'Only on the pages selected'
- Under the tab that pops up, uncheck the page(s) you do not want the module to appear on and leave the page(s) you want the module to appear on
- Click ‘Save'
What Next – Joomla Website Was Built
There you have it. Your site is now up and running. As you see, building a Joomla website from scratch isn't hard, if you follow this guide.
You can choose to customize your website more, for example changing the logo or editing site information, or changing templates.
However, at the current point, your site is set up. If you hosted the website initially on a standard web host, your site is now live and you can sit back to relish the feeling of finishing the build of your online real estate.
Joomla Tutorial
If you did all of this on your PC or localhost. You do have to upload your site files to a standard web host for your website to be available on the Internet, so that visitors can access your website easily.
Best Free Joomla Templates
If you want to promote your website on Facebook, you can go to BigSpy to see how to optimize your ads.
