Be CAREFULL with Miva's Multi-Domain

[RTHOMASDESIGN]

I don't know what's going on with Miva's support these days, but responses are VERY slow right now. It took them 9 days to respond and get multi-domain set up. Which was frustrating while dealing with an overzealous client, but that's not the problem. The problem with Miva's multi-domain is that all previous URIs associated with a store are not migrated over when using the new Multi-Domain link source. You cannot import URIs when using the Multi-Domain link source. My client has had multiple changes to their URI structure over the years (SEO companies), and because of that, none of the previously existing redirects worked... and thousands of their URIs were not updated to the latest URI template prior to Multi-Domain. Which means that many hardcoded links broke, and as you can imagine, it's an anxiety inducing SEO nightmare. I was able to generate new links using previously used URI templates and manually redirect them to the newest template – which fixed the problem for the most part.

Second largest issue: It's been almost two days now and we're unable to preview any template branches other than the primary. We can still access and change them in the admin though. We literally cannot work without being able to verify updates on the frontend and show our client progress. I reached out to support now three times, to which they responded with a screenshot of the branches in the admin interface.... with instructions on how to use the branches.... as if I didn't know how to use template branches. Are you flipping kidding me?! I made those! Now going on 40 hours without a response.

If you are going to use their Multi-Domain setup: If you've always used the same URI template you're probably already in good shape. Otherwise, I recommend regenerating / redirecting your URIs before the setup to ensure that all URIs are using the same template (and it'd be better to wait quite some time after for third-party indexing). Then ensure that you're using the same URI templates within Multi-Domain.

If this is your first time reading this post, ignore the above. Updated documentation should state that when adding a domain under "multi-domain" in URI management, only additional stores should be added. Your primary original store will continue to be managed under URIs. This was confusing for me and multiple support members.

All that said, this is an amazing solution and I very much look forward to managing multiple stores within the same admin -- as does my client.

-Ryan

[Rick Wilson]

Ryan,

Can you hit me up on this? Something is lost in translation here. It's true Multi-Domain has the ability to cause problems when improperly setup, but support isn't behind or slow right now.

[Rick Wilson]

For posterity I found out why you got stuck for 9 days, a Zendesk queueing snafu (nothing they did wrong, a broken process on our side). 8 of your 9 days was spent in a black hole.

So this is a good reminder for anyone reading this, if we go more than 1 business day or so getting back to you on something, feel free to reach out to me. Most likely something is broken in the plumbing somewhere.

Ryan,

I'll let TAC work through your other 2 issues in your ticket.

[RTHOMASDESIGN]

Circling back. The issue was solved earlier today. When setting up the multi domain under URI management, you cannot include your primary domain -- only additional store domains. This wasn't in the documentation, and it should be updated soon.

The URI issue has been resolved because of that -- the primary store retains existing URIs. Additional stores can't update / import URIs via a CSV, but can be imported via xml. Anyway, this has been a learning process and I apologize for my obvious frustration above.

Now that it is working as expected, it's pretty awesome. I can see why it took so long for this feature to come out.

Thanks again Rick Wilson for chiming in and helping to speed this process along – the account manager was very helpful.

-Ryan