hi please could i have your ideas on an issue im faced with.

im building a website for a company but the company is going to be franchised out in to different areas.

on the website there will be a quick enquiry form where a lot of referrals will be made.

all the different areas will be using the same website but business will be owned by different people and each will advertise for their area separately

now one area doesn't want to advertise the website for potential customers to goto the wrong business right, they dont want to waste their money getting sales for other people so i need to find a way to establish where the referral has come from and then any actions taken eg a quick enquiry need to be sent to the appropriate business.

ideas i've had on this is giving each business their own unique subdomain for example area.website.co.uk and they use that url when advertising and when the ad is clicked the subdomain redirects to the main domain but stores a cookie to say its come from that url and then any actions taked is logged from coming from that business and any enquiries are directed to the right business.

this seems a little complex for my ability and im not sure how long it would take me to learn such a practice and implement it, also if one of the business is advertising the website on banners, business cards and such they dont want to put it down as a subdomain.

another idea i had was to track the users ip adress and then figure out which area there from and redirect all enquiries according to ip . . i see a lot of flaws in this though.

and lastly i was thinking of adding an option on the form to select their area and then direct the enquiry according to the area selected. this would be the easiest option i think.

please could i have your ideas as to other options available that i could do to ensure the enquiries are sent to the correct business and.

thanks

IP adresses will map to where the ISP has registered them, not necessarily where the user is. My IP for instance says I'm in Manchester but Blackpool is some 40 odd miles away.

AOL users resolve to various proxy servers which may or may not be in the same country.

Best way is to have users select or enter their postcode and route the enquiries based on that.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

IP adresses will map to where the ISP has registered them, not necessarily where the user is. My IP for instance says I'm in Manchester but Blackpool is some 40 odd miles away.

AOL users resolve to various proxy servers which may or may not be in the same country.

Best way is to have users select or enter their postcode and route the enquiries based on that.

i've never really looked into how ip's work but its on my todo list .

yeah that seems like the ideal option but with that id probably have to manually redirect the enquiry to the relavent area as to have that automated i predict a hell of a lot of work. so i think ill just list the areas that the company work in a simple drop down.

btw im in blackpool next week, where would you recommend to go in terms of bars

Since giving up on the electrical work and the sound and light installation & servicing, and I don't drink so I'm well out of touch with the tourist and "clubin" side of Blackpool and the best bars to go in.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Since giving up on the electrical work and the sound and light installation & servicing, and I don't drink so I'm well out of touch with the tourist and "clubin" side of Blackpool and the best bars to go in.

http://www.canastahotel.com/free_tea_and_coffee.html

Love the "Nescafe .. no cheap imposters!)".

Yep. they are a strange breed are Blackpool hoteliers nowhere else in the world would they make a big thing about what tea and coffe they use.

Love the "Nescafe .. no cheap imposters !