CMS with vanity domain and ecommerce.

June 28, 2007 1:16 PM

I need a CMS that will allow me to do the following:

Once I get the page up and running, I'd like to have the option to purchase a vanity domain for my site, preferably on the same hoster I created it on. Barring this functionality, I'd like to be able to eventually migrate the site and it's data to my own domain and hoster.

Also, I need to be able to integrate widgets for online purchasing, flickr photos, and maybe embedded video.

I've looked into a few already, and WordPress certainly looks slick, but it's very important that I have the ecommerce functionality and the ability to have it hosted on a simple ".com" vanity domain.


Anyone have experience in this area able to recommend a good CMS for these purposes?

posted by lazaruslong to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

I don't know what's in style for eCommerce nowadays, but the ability to register a domain is definitely not in the realm of what you should want, or expect, from a CMS, unless you're looking to make a turnkey solution for other people (which it doesn't sound like you are). That's something that you will do with a domain registrar and coordinate with your webhost (or control via your web control panel, like cPanel or Plesk)

And I think there is some sort of integration with Wordpress for eCommerce... so I would consider that a better choice than using a do-it-all junk-kit like a *nuke or (don't shoot me!) Joomla!
posted by tmcw at 1:29 PM on June 28, 2007

Response by poster: Ok wow, I must have come across as much more savvy in my question than intended, because I do not understand like 8 words in that response tmcw.

I'm really just a really good web user that knows HTML, but by no stretch of the imagination is a programmer or developer. I've always used WYSIWYG editors to build pages with little html tweaks here and there, and since switching to a mac have just used iWeb.

Sadly, I'm the most intarweb intelligent person in my family, and at the recent reunion no less than 4 family members have asked me to build webpages for them.

The personal sites are a piece of cake, but two of them are going to be for businesses.

After searching around AskMe more and reading more at Wordpress, it looks like there are 2 sections: the free blog hosting, and the external hosting partner oriented webhost.

The latter would give me the vanity domain, right?
posted by lazaruslong at 1:36 PM on June 28, 2007

I think the poster wants a CMS with ecommerce that can be hosted on his own domain. Which isn't an issue; somebody somewhere will host your domain and your application, it just depends on what application. It really doesn't matter if your domain is for vanity or not, and most hosts now offer domain registration.

Most of the big hosts are big on one-click-install apps these days, so just pick one that offers what you want, or pick one that offers lots of options and experiment.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:37 PM on June 28, 2007

Best answer: You need to distinguish between wordpress.org and wordpress.com. Wordpress.org is where the wordpress blog engine project lives. Wordpress.com is a blog-hosting service that uses the wordpress blog engine.

Odds are good that if you get a generic web-hosting account, at, well, almost anywhere, they will make it dead-easy for you to register a domain when you open the account or after, and most have a one-click install of wordpress.

There are a couple of wordpress plugins for e-commerce integration. I have no experience with either of them, although I'd have to say that Wordpress isn't the first thing I'd think of if I wanted to set up an e-commerce site.

I'd suggest getting familiar with a vanilla install of Wordpress (or whatever), and working your way up from there. E-commerce tends to be some of the most complicated stuff to work with in a CMS.
posted by adamrice at 1:42 PM on June 28, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks a ton, that cleared it up. Appreciate it folks.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:45 PM on June 28, 2007

I would actually, on re-read, suggest a commerce solution and can the CMS. You can put photos and video on a store; unless you're blogging you don't need Wordpress.

But, if you do need it, you don't have to get it from wordpress.*. Half the world offers it as one-click now. I've been with Dreamhost for 9 years, they've got a number of one-click options, and you get some domain regs with your account.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:47 PM on June 28, 2007

TypePad has all of these features, along with built-in help ticket support from actual humans to help you get set up and figure things out. I work with them, but would highly recommend them regardless if you decide you want a CMS with the ability to link to commerce.
posted by anildash at 2:10 PM on June 28, 2007

I always recommend getting your hosting and domain registration from separate companies. It makes life a lot easier if you decide to go to another host.
posted by a.mosquito at 2:30 PM on June 28, 2007

If you're savvy and would like to learn new things, Joomla does ALL those things very, very well. Assuming you know how to create mySQL databases on the server and add users, you could have the site up and running w/ all those things (sans content, of course) in about 30 minutes max.
posted by TomMelee at 5:46 PM on June 28, 2007