A few days ago, I purchased my first NFT. No it was not a JPEG of an ape or Donald Trump. It was my first web3 purchase of a domain name. When you make a purchase in the web3 world, it is stored in the form of immutable records on blockchain. For this to happen, you need to pay a gas fees for this transaction. This is in addition to the domain purchase fees. Since gas fees on Ethereum can be out of bounds at times, Unstoppable domains introduced the functionality of minting on Polygon. Polygon is a L2 solution that is solving the scalability problems of Ethereum Mainnet.
Long story short, while I purchased the domain for gas fee <$1, there were a lot of features that were under development. These features were already made live on domains purchased on Ethereum Blockchain but not on Polygon. One such feature was website management. I have listed other shortcomings (which will get resolved in future) for unstoppable domains here.
After waiting for about 15 days, I finally got a mail from the Unstoppable Domains team. Website Management is NOW LIVE for Polygon. So in today’s blogpost, I am going to walk you through the steps of doing so. How to Redirect Unstoppable Domain to a Traditional Website?
What is Website Management?
As mentioned in the previous blogpost, one of the reasons to purchase an Unstoppable domain was to run this website on the top of it. There are couple of options when it comes to website management on an unstoppable domain:
A. You could either build a new website from the scratch and then launch it.
B. You could redirect your unstoppable domain to a traditional https domain.
I chose the latter option because of the following reasons:
A. For starters, browsers are still unable to open the websites that end with .crypto, .bitcoin, .x etc. Especially for the domains minted on Polygon, you need an extension for browser to open these sites.
B. Even if you manage to do that, there is still no way for someone to run these websites on mobile which is the highest traffic generator when it comes to online content.
With that explainer out of the way, let’s understand how to redirect your unstoppable domains to a traditional website. In this example, I redirected pandatechie.crypto (NFT Domain) to pandatechie.in (Traditional blog URL).
Entering Web3, One Step At a Time:
While there is already a tutorial available on Unstoppable Domains to guide you on how to do this, I would like to share it in my words with special emphasis on points where I got stuck. This would help you avoid those pitfalls from the very beginning.
Step 1: Navigate to Manage Website:
Step 2: Creating Index.HTML
Don’t worry when pandatechie is here! You won’t have to code at all. Just follow simple steps as mentioned below:
2.A: Copy the following code and paste it in Notepad:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>HTML Meta Tag</title>
<meta http-equiv = “refresh” content = “1; url = YOUR WEBSITE URL HERE” />
</head>
<body>
<p>YOUR WEBSITE DESCRIPTION HERE </p>
</body>
</html>
2.B: Replace the bold parts with what they are:
YOUR WEBSITE URL HERE (https://pandatechie.in) (Don’t miss the HTTPS) and YOUR WEBSITE DESCRIPTION HERE (This is an awesome website).
2.C: Saving the file:
Once you have made the changes, save the file as index.html.
Pitfall alert! Once you save the file it has the tendency of getting saved as index.html.txt at times. What needs to be done in such a case? Go to the folder/drive containing the file and press on ‘view’ tab from the navigation bar. Check mark the box that says “Hidden Items”.
Post that, you should be able to see the file extension for all the files in that folder. Simply rename your index.html.txt to index.html.
Step 3: Linking the Website:
As soon as you go the website management area, the second pitfall awaits. While it may seem very tempting to click on the third option of custom website linking to redirect your NFT domain to a traditional website, it just isn’t the way!
So head over to the second option that says upload files to IPFS. Simply browse your HTML file and hit upload button. Hit on launch website as soon as you are done (Screenshot below)
Step 4: Metamask
As soon as you hit “launch website” you would be prompted to connect your wallet. While there are multiple wallet options, we are going to use the most popular one; Metamask, here.
Sign in to your Metamask wallet and get ready to sign multiple transactions. This is just you giving the authority to Unstoppable domains to make certain changes to your NFT (Domain).
It should take a few seconds before the transaction completes and changes reflect.
Step 5: Go Flex
Oh this one is just to mess with you all. There is no step 5. Only thing left is to pat your back as you venture into web3 like a boss. Also, if you haven’t already, go change your social media handles with your domain name. You own it for god’s sake!
Conclusion:
Talking of flexing, do you mind visiting pandatechie.crypto OR pandatechie.bitcoin to check if everything is in place? Make sure that you install the extension first. As web3 goes mainstream, we would not need any extensions or plugins any more. That’s when I would actually create a website on it instead of just redirecting.
Until then, happy to help my peers! If you are one of those who have not yet purchased an Unstoppable domain, go to a CEX like CoinDCX and move that MATIC to Metamask and get started. Here’s $10 credit for you!
Got questions? Want to take it to the next level? Reach out to me using your preferred platform from the links below
Until next time..
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