Skip to main content
Multi-domain considerations

Learn about the caveats involved when using multiple domains

Bart Coppens avatar
Written by Bart Coppens
Updated over a year ago

Caveats

When using Discount Ninja on a shop that uses different domains to cater to different languages/regions, there are a few caveats to take into consideration.

What is a different domain?

The following clarifies what is considered a different domain.

Consider a shop hosted on the domain www.discountninja.io

The columns explain when the URL has a:

  • Different top-level domain (TLD): this is the part of the domain at the end. Examples include: .com, .io, .co.uk, .com.br, ...

  • Different subdomain: this is the part of the domain that precedes the root of the domain. Examples include: www., shop., ca.

URL

Different TLD?

Different subdomain?

No

Yes

empty instead of www

https://ca.discountninja.io

No

Yes

ca instead of www

No

different protocol: http instead of https

No

different protocol: http instead of https

Yes

fr instead of io

No

No

different path

No

different path

No

different query string

No

different query string

Using tokens on different top-level domains (TLD)

Promotions triggered using a shareable link or test link will not work when your customers navigate to URLs that have a different top-level domain (TLD).

For example:

  • Step 1: a customer navigates to https://www.exampleshop.com?token=ABCD

    • The app triggers the promotion with token ABCD and stores this information in the cache.

    • The promotion works.

  • Step 2: the customer follows a link to navigate to the Canadian site: http://www.exampleshop.ca

    • The app attempts to retrieve the token (ABCD) from the cache, but the browser denies access to the values stored when on exampleshop.com, because the customer is on a different domain: exampleshop.ca

    • The promotion does not work after navigating to exampleshop.ca.

    • Unless the customer adds the token to the URL (https://www.exampleshop.ca?token=ABCD), the promotion will not trigger.

Using tokens on different subdomains

Promotions triggered using a shareable link or test link will work when your customers navigate to URLs that have a different subdomain.

This is because a browser can read cache that was saved on a different subdomain, as long as it belongs to the same root domain (including the same top-level domain).

Sharing promotions

If you run multiple, related Shopify storefronts, you may be able to share promotions. It depends on whether the different storefronts are administered from the same .myshopify.com shop.

If the different domains are associated with the same .myshopify.com backend, then promotions can be accessed on all of those domains (note the caveat above about top-level domains).

However, if the domains are managed on separate .myshopify.com backend, the user will need to install Discount Ninja on each .myshopify.com store and will need to set up promotions for each of those stores. Discount Ninja includes export/import functionalities to facilitate this.

Did this answer your question?