Background
So the extent of my tech expertise is this: knowing that basic HTML tags exist, but never remembering how to write them, marveling at iOS shortcuts that other people built, and telling everyone in the office that we should Power Automate everything.
I’m more of a cheerleader than a developer.
My Question
So here’s my DNS question. I get the concept and I know where to go to learn more. But I have a tiny website I made using Weebly a long time ago. I’m ready to decommission it. There is, however, one page - or more specifically, one page url I’d like to maintain or redirect to somewhere else.
I distributed a QR code that goes to that page, and I’d like for future QR code scanners to get taken to a working page, not whatever will show up when I delete my site.
Is this possible with .lol and the DNS service it provides? Or am I out of luck? If it is possible, where can I find instructions? If it’s not possible, it’s not the end of the world. But I do wish I could hang a “closed” sign on the page in case someone visits in the future.
Before I dive into any head-spin-inducing DNS stuff, let me ask a few clarifying questions:
Is your goal to keep that page’s functionality alive and running—that is, the form itself, and its submission process?
When someone submits the form, what happens? Does it send an email to you with the submission data, or does it do something else?
Do you know if Weebly offers the option to keep your site up and running even if you point your personal domain elsewhere? Like on a Weebly subdomain or something?
I have a couple of thoughts on the best approach to take here, but the answers to these questions will be helpful in making sure that it will work!
Yes, I’d like for the form to persist at that url (or at a redirected url). The QR code points to that page. The QR code is engraved in metal on a traveling trophy award, so it’s pretty permanent.
The form is a Weebly form (not an embed from another site). User click submit, the answer get emailed to me. I would imagine the form will be deleted along with the site when it’s time.
I’m not sure what your third question means but I’m happy to ask Weebly. What exactly should I say to them?
I can’t think of a way to give up the site and the url and yet keep on page of it alive, maybe this is all kind of fruitless?
Thanks for the info. For the third question, what I mean is that if you point your www.librarymatthew.com domain away from Weebly (and over to omg.lol), would Weebly let you keep the existing site you have at something like a subdomain, e.g. librarymatthew.weebly.com or something similar. If the answer is “yes”, then this is the setup you could run with:
Add the www.librarymatthew.com domain to omg.lol on your Switchboard page (and maybe the base librarymatthew.com domain as well if you want).
Ensure that your old site is available on a Weebly subdomain as described above, so that the /award.html page can still be reached.
Set up a PURL in omg.lol that points to the /award.html page on the new Weebly URL for the page. Make the PURL called award.html.
With this setup in place, after your move, if someone visits https://www.librarymatthew.com/award.html, the visitor would hit omg.lol (if the domain is pointed there), and then the award.html PURL would kick in and redirect them to the live award page on Weebly. This means that the QR code would continue to work, even if the actual award form is elsewhere now. Magic!
Let me know if any part of this doesn’t make sense. Happy to help you completely through the process!
