Introduction

This guide outlines important things to consider before you complete your upgrade to Merchant Solutions. You may want to print this page for future reference. Since making this change requires preparation, Yahoo! provides the choice to you so that you have control over when this change occurs.

Home Page Choice

Yahoo! Merchant Solutions provides you with the option to continue sending your domain traffic to your Yahoo! Store home page. This means that when visitors go to http://www.yourdomain.com or http://yourdomain.com, they will see the home page you choose. There are some limitations when you choose to send your customers to your Yahoo! Store home page so we suggest you thoroughly read the information provided in this guide if you are considering this option.

New Email (e.g. info@yourdomain.com)

If you currently receive email messages addressed to your domain name (e.g. info@widgetdesigns.com) then this information pertains to you. It is likely that you set up email forward addresses within your Yahoo! Store manager so that email messages would be forwarded to your personal mailbox. However, after you complete your upgrade, your email will be processed through your Business Mail within Merchant Solutions. Therefore, in order to prevent important email messages from being lost when you click the button to complete your upgrade, you will need to set up your forward addresses in your Business Mail control panel before you complete your upgrade. For more information on how to do this, refer to “Yahoo Business Mail Help” linked below.

Why am I given the choice to direct my traffic to my Store home page or Web Hosting home page?
Your Store home page was built using Store Editor. Store Editor pages reside on servers dedicated to, and set up to handle publishing from the Store Editor. When you upgrade to Merchant Solutions, your Store pages remain unchanged and you are additionally provided with Web Hosting disk space which resides on servers providing you with the ability to use your favorite web site building tools (such as Yahoo! SiteBuilder, FrontPage®, Dreamweaver®), together with Catalog Manager for quickly uploading and managing your product pages.

If you wish to continue using Store Editor and directing http://www.yourdomain.com (and http://yourdomain.com) traffic to your Store home page, you can still take advantage of your Web Hosting disk space and features and the web address for those pages would start with http://site.yourdomain.com. If you prefer to rebuild your home page using web site building tools (such as Yahoo! SiteBuilder, FrontPage®, Dreamweaver®), and Catalog Manager for quickly uploading and managing your products, then you should direct your traffic to your Web Hosting home page, in which case your Store Editor pages would start with the web address http://store.yourdomain.com. The choice is yours.

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How do I choose which home page to send my customers?
If your Yahoo! Store is fairly well established, it is likely you have already used your domain name in search engines, promotions, marketing materials, etc. Some search engine rankings depend on page ranking or other variables associated with your home page. So in some cases your search engine rankings may suffer if you change to the Merchant Solutions home page until you are able to build your page rank back up with your new page addresses. Also, your customers are used to seeing your current website (i.e. your Yahoo! Store home page). Sometimes drastic changes to your home page can cause disruption to your business.

However, sending your traffic to your Yahoo! Store home page will prevent you from fully utilizing the features provided by your Merchant Solutions plan.

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Where can I find the form to complete my upgrade to Merchant Solutions?
If you are prepared to complete your upgrade, you can find the link in your Domain Control Panel. Sign in to your account and from the Store Manager or from http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com, click the “Manage My Services” button near the top right of the page. This will take you to a page that lists your services. You can find the link to the “Domain Control Panel” in the module for your Merchant Solutions plan. On the Domain Control Panel, click the “Complete Upgrade” link. Yahoo! provides this tool to you so that you have control over when the changes occur.

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What happens to my website traffic and my email after I complete the upgrade?

Traffic

If you choose to continue sending your visitors to your Store home page, the URL of your Store pages will not change. Your visitors will not see a change once you have completed your upgrade. They will continue seeing your storefront just as they did before the upgrade.

If you choose "Switch Traffic to Hosting" the URL of your Store pages will change from http://www.yourdomain.com (and http://yourdomain.com) to http://store.yourdomain.com. If you do not want the address of these pages to change you should choose the "Continue Traffic to Store" option.

If you choose to direct your domain traffic (http://www.yourdomain.com and http://yourdomain.com) to your Web Hosting home page (index.html), you should finish creating that page for customers before you complete your upgrade. Otherwise, customers to your domain will see a default "Under Construction" page upon switching. Also, some search engine rankings depend on page ranking or other variables associated with your home page. So in some cases your search engine rankings may suffer if you change to the Web Hosting home page until you are able to build your page rank back up.

If you receive email at your domain name, you must set up your forward addresses before you complete your upgrade. After you complete your upgrade, email messages addressed to your domain name (e.g. you@yourdomain.com) will be handled by a different mail server, specifically Yahoo! Business Mail servers. In order to prevent messages from “bouncing” when this change occurs, you will need to set up your Business Mail addresses (included in all the Merchant Solutions plans) ahead of time. To do so, click the “Manage My Services” button on the right side of your store manager, near the top, then find the link within your store module to manage your email.

Scenario 1:
Acme For Kids has upgraded their Yahoo! Store to a Yahoo! Merchant Solutions plan. They don’t intend to re-create their store using store tags on their Web Hosting directory for quite some time. But they want to begin using the nifty Business Mail provided in their new plan. So they click on the “My Services” button on the right side of their store manager, near the top of the page. Once there, they click on the “Domain Control Panel” link for the store they are managing. In the Domain Control Panel, they find and click on “Complete Upgrade to Merchant Solutions” link. After carefully reading the information provided, they choose to continue sending their traffic to their Store home page.

• File Manager Help
• Building your Site
• Store Tags Tutorial
• Catalog Manager Tutorial

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What if I decide to never switch my traffic?
That’s up to you. As long as you complete your upgrade, it is perfectly fine to never switch your traffic to your Web hosting home page. However, if you never switch your traffic to your Web Hosting home page, some functionality won’t be entirely supported. For example, you will not be able to publish pages from within FrontPage (though you can upload FrontPage files using an FTP client) and some Yahoo! SiteBuilder functionality may not work correctly.

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Can I complete my upgrade and then change my mind and want the traffic to go to the other home page?
Yes. The destination of your domain traffic is reversible. Any time after the upgrade, you can go back into your Domain Control Panel and click the “Domain Traffic Option” link. Be aware though that switching traffic has serious implications for accessing and working with your site. Read the warnings and notes on the Domain Traffic Option page carefully (also appearing below) before switching your traffic. Note: The upgrade itself is irreversible (i.e. you can’t go back to the product you used to have after you’ve placed your order to upgrade from Yahoo! Store to a Yahoo! Merchant Solutions plan).

Notes and Warnings when switching from Web Hosting home page to Store home page:

• WARNING: Switching the traffic from your Web Hosting home page to your Store home page will result in downtime while Yahoo! updates the store servers with your new DNS information which happens at 12 midnight PST (Pacific Standard Time). To minimize the amount of downtime, Yahoo! recommends switching your traffic on a day with the least amount of traffic to your store and as close but prior to midnight (this may be a weekend night but use your statistics to determine which night is appropriate for your case). If you have a second (or more) domain pointing to the domain you are switching, see the note below.
• Note: If you have a second (or more) domains which you use an alias to point to your Merchant Solutions domain, you must reset your alias for your domain(s) and any subdomains in the Domain Record Manager page of the Domain Control Panel for the additional aliased domains. You can only reset the aliased domain(s) once the traffic has been switched and the store servers updated at 12 midnight (PST).
  
  To reset a domain alias:
  1. Once the pointing process has completed, access the domain which you wish to update.
  2. Click the “Domain Record Manager” link from the Domain Control Panel.
  3. Select your Merchant Solutions domain name from the drop-down menu.
  4. Click the [update alias] button.
  5. Click [confirm update] on the Confirmation page.
  6. Repeat this process for any subdomains or additional domains pointing to your Merchant Solutions domain.
• Note: If you use FrontPage to build your web site and you choose to point your traffic to your Store home page, you will not be able to publish using the built-in publishing features with FrontPage. You will need to publish pages by using an FTP client (such as CuteFTP or WSFTP) to upload your pages to your account.
• Note: Some search engine rankings depend on page ranking or other variables associated with your home page. So in some cases your search engine rankings may suffer if you change to the Web Hosting home page until you are able to build your page rank back up.
• Note: Email will not be impacted by switching your domain traffic.

Notes and Warnings when switching from Store home page to Web Hosting home page:

• WARNING: Switching the traffic from your Store home page to your Web Hosting home page may take up to 90 minutes to complete while Yahoo! updates the store servers with your new DNS information. During this time, some visitors will see your Store home page while others will see your Web Hosting home page. To minimize the impact of this transition period, Yahoo! recommends switching your traffic at a day and time with the least amount of traffic to your store (this may be a weekend night but use your statistics to determine what time is appropriate for your case).
• Note: During the transition period, “view my site” links may not function properly and you may not be able to use FrontPage or Yahoo! SiteBuilder to publish. Wait 90 minutes to 2 hours until all traffic is pointed to your Web Hosting home page before publishing changes to your web site.
• Note: During the transition period, you may not be able to create subdomains. Wait until traffic is pointed to your Web Hosting home page before creating any subdomains.
• Note: Some search engine rankings depend on page ranking or other variables associated with your home page. So in some cases your search engine rankings may suffer if you change to the Web Hosting home page until you are able to build your page rank back up.
• Note: Email will not be impacted by switching your domain traffic.

Scenario 2:
Over the past few weeks, Acme For Kids (acmeforkids.com) has been busy building their web site on Yahoo! Web Hosting. They have created their index page and even created item pages using Store Tags. Their Web Hosting site is now ready for prime time and they want their customers to go to this new site instead of their existing Yahoo! Store. They click on the Complete Upgrade link in their Domain Control Panel and click on the button to send traffic to Yahoo! Web Hosting button.

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What happens to my email if I used Yahoo! Store email forwarding for the domain that I migrated to Yahoo! Merchant Solutions?
To ensure that your email service is uninterrupted you must first go to your new Yahoo! Business Mail account (included with all Yahoo! Merchant Solutions plans) and set-up your email accounts before you complete your upgrade. You will be able to set up individual email boxes or you can configure them to forward mail, similar to the way you had it set up with your Store account.

Scenario 3:
Acme For Kids (acmeforkids.com) uses the email forwarding functionality in the Store Manager. They have support@acmeforkids.com and orders@acmeforkids.com email addresses forwarding to their primary mail accounts. They are ready to use the Switch Tool to direct the traffic to their Web Hosting site but they first go to Yahoo! Business Mail to configure support@acmeforkids.com and orders@acmeforkids.com. Once they have done this they are ready to use the Switch Tool and are guaranteed not to miss any emails.

Need help getting your Yahoo! Business Mail accounts set up?

• Yahoo! Business Mail Help

Will any of my additional domains be affected when I complete my upgrade?
Any domains that you previously registered through Yahoo! Store will continue to point to your Yahoo! Store and you will continue to manage these domains through the Yahoo! Store Manager.

Any domains you previously registered through Yahoo! Domains that are pointed to your Store using an alias would be affected by switching your traffic.

If you have a second (or more) domains which you use an alias to point to your Merchant Solutions domain, you must reset your alias for your domain(s) and any subdomains in the Domain Record Manager page of the Domain Control Panel for the additional aliased domains. You can only reset the aliased domain(s) once the traffic has been switched and the store servers updated at 12 midnight (PST).

1. Once the pointing process has completed, access the domain which you wish to update.
2. Click the “Domain Record Manager” link from the Domain Control Panel.
3. Select your Merchant Solutions domain name from the drop-down menu.
4. Click the [update alias] button.
5. Click [confirm update] on the Confirmation page.
6. Repeat this process for any subdomains or additional domains pointing to your Merchant Solutions domain.

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What will happen to my store.yahoo.com/store_id URL?
Your store.yahoo.com/store_id URL will continue to point to your Yahoo! Store. The store.yahoo.com/store_id URL will now redirect to store.merchant_solutions_domain.com which still points to your Yahoo! Store.

Scenario 4:
Shoppers who visit Acme For Kids at the store.yahoo.com/acmeforkids URL will now see store.acmeforkids.com in the browser window but will still land on the Acme for Kids Yahoo! Store.

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