Domain Mapping System Review: Microsites, Custom Landing Pages, and Much More

Do you want to point multiple domains to a single WordPress install? Or how about displaying unique content for each domain, while managing it all under one WordPress dashboard?

That’s where domain mapping plugins come into play.

Domain mapping lets you create multiple sites that are unique on the front end, while you manage all of them from the same WordPress admin dashboard.

You can map domains to individual posts or pages on your site. You can even implement microsites that have multiple groups of pages and posts within your existing site.

In our Domain Mapping System review, we’ll take an in-depth look at this plugin and show you how you can start managing multiple domains under a single WordPress site.

Domain Mapping System: A High-Level Overview

Domain Mapping System is a WordPress domain mapping plugin that makes it easy to manage multiple domains under a single WordPress site. This plugin is created by Gaucho Plugins, the same company behind other plugins like Payment Page.

If you couldn’t guess by the name, the core focus of Domain Mapping System is helping you create multiple sites or pages inside a single WordPress site. Each with their own unique domain name, products, branding, and more.

This can be useful for digital marketers, SaaS and WaaS platforms, along with businesses or other companies that have multiple locations or target markets.

Here are some of the main ways this plugin can be used:

• Creating custom landing pages with unique branding to serve clients in different locations and industries.
• Targeting different regions and languages with ccTLDs.
• Hosting unique pages for your WooCommerce products to improve conversions.
• Letting users bring their own domains or vanity URLs for Saas/WaaS products.
• You have a blog with different categories and want each category to operate on its own domain.

In general, domain mapping can be used in a lot of creative ways that are unique to your business and website setup.

A lot of times going for a multisite installation or managing multiple WordPress websites is overkill, and this plugin offers a great solution.

How to Use Domain Mapping System: A Deep Dive

Now that you understand why you’ll want to use this plugin, let’s look at how you can start creating your WordPress microsites, landing pages, and more using the plugin.

Upon installation and activation, you’ll need to configure your server settings and DNS records. Essentially, this allows you to point other domains towards your main site and manage them with the plugin.

Keep in mind is this plugin isn’t supported by every hosting provider. Your host needs to support domain aliases or give you control of the root domain at the server level. Check out their list of supported hosts to confirm you’re using a supported host. Most hosting environments that use cPanel will be able to do this for you.

After that, you can move forward with configuring your DNS records. You’ll need to set up an A record for the domain you want to map and point this towards the IP address of your server.

Once you’ve done that, you can add the new domain to your server as an addon domain, alias, or as a parked domain. Just make sure it’s pointing toward the same root folder as your main site domain name.

After that’s all set up you can begin configuring the plugins to your needs. This might seem like a pretty complex process. But this is going to be the most technical step. Without the help of this plugin, you’ll be hiring for a lot of custom WordPress development work (or spending a lot of time doing it yourself).

Domain Mapping

Once everything is configured it’s pretty easy to start mapping your domains. Simply click on Domain Mapping and then enter the URL for the mapped domain. Then, you can select the page or post on your site that you want to map the domain to. Simply repeat the process for mapping multiple domains.

You also have the option to upload a custom favicon that’ll display next to the website in the browser bar. This can help to enhance site branding.

Creating WordPress Microsites

Microsites are essentially collections of posts and pages under a separate domain. When mapping a domain you have the option to select multiple posts and pages. The option with the radio button selected will act as your home page.

Subdirectory or Subdomain Mapping

Another option for site owners who don’t have another domain is to use subdirectories or subdomains. This lets you take advantage of being able to map a custom domain, without having to purchase a new domain.

For example, you can create local subdomains that include the city name and create unique landing pages.

Configuring these depends upon your hosting provider. But, once they’re set up you can map them just like any other domain above.

Product Mapping for WooCommerce

If you run a WooCommerce store, you might want separate domain names for the different products you sell. This can help with branding and making your product pages more memorable. But, instead of creating and managing multiple sites, just map the new URL to your product pages.

It follows a similar process, but you’ll be selecting individual products, instead of pages or posts.

Additional Domain Mapping Options

Below the main domain mapping configuration options you’ll find additional options that give you complete control over how your domain is mapped. Simply check the box for the option you’d like to enable.

There’s a lot you can do like enable query string parameters for Google tracking codes and affiliate links, force users to only see the mapped domain, enable global domain mapping to save time, and much more.

Configure Unique SEO Settings for Every Mapped Domain

You can also take advantage of the Yoast SEO integration to create unique titles, descriptions, and keywords, for all mapped versions of the page, along with enabling custom sitemaps per each domain. Simply enable the options at the bottom of the settings screen.

Then, you’ll notice a new option on the Yoast SEO page or post settings screen. Here you can add your custom title, meta description, and keywords.

Setting Available Post Types

Finally, you can set which post types you’d like the plugin to be able to map. Simply click on the boxes for any post types you’d like to disable.

Support and Documentation

The Domain Mapping System has a variety of support options. You can reach their team through a support ticket, or live chat. Both options were very fast, responsive, and helpful.

Plus, there’s very extensive plugin documentation that walks you through everything you need to know about the plugin. There’s a series of video guides that walks you through setting up the plugin as well.

Finally, premium users get access to priority support, and 1 on 1 live chat with screenshares to help troubleshoot any configuration issues.

Domain Mapping System Pricing Breakdown

If all you want to do is map your domains and subdomains to single posts and pages, then you can get away with using the free version of the plugin.

However, if you want to go beyond mapping to single pages, posts, or products and create full-on microsites where multiple pages and posts are grouped together, then you’ll need the premium version of the plugin.

The paid version also lets you map all pages and posts on your site with one click, map subdirectories, redirect visitors to mapped domains, pass through query parameters like tracking codes, map WooCommerce products, and more.

Pricing for the premium plugin is pretty straightforward and depends on how many sites you need to use the plugin on. You’ll also get a discount for paying yearly.

Here’s how the full pricing breaks down:

Sites	Monthly	Yearly
1	$8.99/mo	$79/yr
3	$15.99/mo	$149/yr
25	$49.99/mo	$459/yr

For example, with 1 site the yearly plan will work out to just over $6.50 per month. Often, they’ll run discounts on these plans too, so they’ll be even more affordable.

Real User Feedback and Reviews

Since it’s a relatively new plugin you won’t find a lot of reviews from third-party platforms like G2, Product Hunt, or Trustpilot. However, the plugin review section in the WordPress plugin repo has almost 100% five-star ratings. Currently, it has an average rating of 4.9 stars out of 5 from 27 reviews.

Nearly every review talks about how the plugin did exactly what they were looking for and made it easy to map domains to WordPress pages and posts. Plus, most users mention the quality and responsiveness of the customer support team.

Final Thoughts on Domain Mapping System

Overall, Domain Mapping System is a simple and straightforward plugin that makes it easy to map domains across your WordPress site.

The most challenging part of using the plugin is configuring your DNS records and adding the domain to your host. But, once you’re past that it’s smooth sailing.

For users who want to map domains for landing pages, and products, or create small microsites, it’s a great solution that takes away a lot of the development time for a custom solution.

However, creating truly custom landing pages and microsites can be difficult depending on the WordPress theme you’re using. But this depends on your theme and if you’re using a page builder. Since most page builders let you create completely custom pages.

The product roadmap also shows the development team is busy creating new features their customers actually want. It’s unique in that users can vote for features they want to see.

If you want to try the plugin first, you can install the free version and get access to basic domain and subdomain mapping, and multisite integration.

However, if you want the ability to create microsites, map domains globally, map subdirectories, use WooCommerce product mapping, and much more, then you’ll need the premium version.