How does one google app engine app serve multiple domains?

Question

Or can it be done?

For example, I want to help a few friends to setup their shopping cart websites. They have their website domain names already purchased. But I want to pay one google app engine application at www.mywebsite.com, and I want to "forward" their domain to www.mywebsite.com/friend1, www.mywebsite.com/friend2. In this way, I want their customers see their website which could be http://www.friend1.com, but they are actually served by one single app engine application.

In my application, I know how to get the path analyzed so I can go to datastore to serve diffrent pages, html. So the question is just how or can one google app engine be forwarded from different domains. Thanks!

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure what is your exact meaning of "forward", but I try to answer for different situations.

1. If you want the browser to keep displaying www.friend1.com all the way without ever showing www.mywebsite.com, you should have friend1.com setup as a Google App account, and add their domain into your application (just like you did for your own domain). This way, all traffic to www.friend1.com (or what ever subdomain they pick) goes to your appengine app. And your App should detect the domain of the http request and response accordingly.

2. If you just want a "redirect"... that means, user goes to www.friend1.com will have their browser auto goes to www.mywebsite.com/friend1 and displaying it in the URL bar , well, just setup one index.html page in www.friend1.com and add meta refresh header in the file. Or use any server side redirect method.