Introduction

DomainAv

Version 1.1.0

DomainAv is an PHP script built with Laravel 6, Bootstrap 4 and jQuery 3. This script is an extensive tool for checking domain name availability. With this script you can boost up your earning by advertisement and affiliate marketing by providing domain availability information to your visitors because this script is super ready for ad monetization and domain affiliate system. You have all the option to set SEO Meta data each and every page so that you don’t miss a single visitor from Search Engines. Moreover, you will be amazed to see how customizable this script is!

Let's explore!

Installation

Requirements

• PHP >= 7.2.0
• GD PHP Extension
• cURL PHP Extension
• OpenSSL PHP Extension
• JSON PHP Extension
• Free storage space >= 70 MB

Installation process

1. Create Database

Create a database from hosting panel. If you don't know how to do that, contact your hosting provider or you can watch these video tutorials-

• How to create database in cPanel
• How to create database in Plesk
• How to create database in DirectAdmin

We will require the following information in the next steps-

• MySQL Database name
• MySQL User
• User Password
• Host (it is typically localhost or 127.0.0.1)
• Port (it is typically 3306)

The user must be added to the database with all privileges, otherwise the application won't work.

2. Import Database Tables

1. Log into phpMyAdmin
2. Navigate to the newly created database
3. Import domainav-database.sql in the database. If you don't know how to import an SQL file in database, contact your hosting provider or watch this tutorial video.

3. Upload Script.zip

1. Log into your hosting file manager.
2. Upload Script.zip file in your desired folder. If you want to install the script in domain root (e.g. https://yourdomain.com), you should upload the script in public_html or httpdocs folder.
3. After uploading, extract the ZIP file. After extraction, delete the ZIP file.

4. Configure application

• Open the .env file which is inside application folder (public_html/application/.env) and follow the next steps.

APP_NAME= My App Name    < This is wrong
APP_NAME="My App Name"   < This is right
APP_NAME=MyAppName       < This is right

4 (a). Set Database Information

• Set database information values in .env file as below (line 9 to 14)-

	DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
	DB_PORT=3306
	DB_DATABASE=your_database_name
	DB_USERNAME=your_database_user
	DB_PASSWORD=user_password

4 (b). Set SMTP Information

It is required to set SMTP information in the .env file for a working mail system (required for email verification, password reset email, etc.) in line 17-24. Once you set SMTP information, remove the line MAIL_DRIVER=log from the .env file. For SMTP information, contact your hosting provider.

 	MAIL_MAILER=smtp
        MAIL_HOST=your_smtp_host
        MAIL_PORT=your_smtp_port
        MAIL_USERNAME=your_smtp_username
        MAIL_PASSWORD=your_smtp_password
        MAIL_ENCRYPTION=your_smtp_encryption
        MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS=your_from_email

4 (c). Set Admin Email

Set admin email as ADMIN_EMAIL=your.email@gmail.com

After you set your email here, you must register an admin account with the same email.

4 (d). Other configurations

• APP_NAME=YourAppName (you can change it later from admin dashboard)
• APP_URL=https://your-website-homepage.com (this is important and the URL must be the public accessible homepage URL of your website. Use https:// if you have SSL installed on your server for your domain)
• After setting all these values, save the .env file.

5. Congratulations!

Your DomainAv Application is ready to use! Visit your homepage. If you see any error, review the whole process if you have any mistakes or contact us for professional support.

Default Admin

Your public pages are ready. But if you cannot register and login as an admin for any reason, use the default admin credentials as below-

Email: default@devslib.com

Password: default_password (Change the password immediately after login)

Register Admin Account

Before you register admin account, place your email in the .env file as admin email. (If you have already added the email in a process of setting multiple admin account, you don't need set it again in .env file).

1. Go to the log in screen.
2. Click on the Register account link.
3. In the next page, fill all the fields of the form. Use the email you set in .env file. Otherwise you will not get administrative access for your website.
4. If you have already set SMTP information correctly, you should receive an email with the email verification link. Otherwise you will get no email. In this case, log into your hosting file manager and open this log file public_html/application/storage/logs/laravel.log. You will find your email verification link at the bottom of the log file which is similar to this-

    # Hello!
   
    Please click the button below to verify your email address.
   
    Verify Email Address: https://your-site.com/admin/email/verify/19/a287cec804201....
   

To see how to set multiple admin, see here.

Dashboard

Dashboard is the homepage of your website admin panel. This is where you will start your administrative work for your website.

Log in to dashboard

Click on Login at the top right corner of the screen to go the login screen. Enter your Log in credentials and Log in

There are couple of things you can do in this page.

Application update checker

Click in the little sync icon to check for new updates.

Navigation of the admin dashboard

A list of links for operating various tasks in the admin dashboard is gathered together for your convenience.

Stats

A small statistics of the website can be observed in this section of the page.

Reports

In reports page, you can view the recent searches done by the visitors.

Download a report

Click on the small download icon to download a report.

Delete a report

Click on the small delete icon to delete a report. It is better to delete the report time to time because otherwise your database may have a huge number data which may cause performance issue. Before you delete any report, download the report first. Because deleting cannot be undone.

Generic pages

Generic page feature is a great feature for creating regular text and image based pages. You can create an About Us page, a Privacy Policy page or a Terms of Service page using this feature.

All pages

List of pages already created in your website.

Published

List of pages that are published and publicly visible.

Drafts

List of pages that is not published yet.

Trash

List of pages that you want to delete

Create a page

Click on the Create button. In the next page, you will get the page creation form. Fill all the necessary fields.

Title

Title of the page

Subtitle

Subtitle of the page (optional)

Slug

The part of the URL where public will access the page. Slug must contain only alphanumeric characters and dashes and it must be unique.

Content

Content of the page. If you want to add any image, you require the URL of the image. For that, go to Media Files > Upload and upload your image. After uploading, click "Copy URL" (you will find it at the right side of the row). Now you can use the URL in your page.

Image

Choose a featured image for the page. If you don't want the featured image to be shown in the page, uncheck the option "Show image in page".

Meta description

Provide meta description for the page. This is required for better SEO.

Canonical URL

If your page is duplicate of another page, set the orignal page link in this field. Otherwise duplicate contents may cause penalty by search engines.

SEO overview

For better SEO, some points are required to consider such as the length of the content, number of Heading texts, etc. In the this section you will find a basic SEO overview of the page you are creating. In this section, the recommendation for different SEO considerable points are also noted. Try to follow for better SEO.

Now you can publish the page or save as draft by clicking the Publish and Save as draft buttons.

Edit a page

To edit a page, click on the Edit button at the right side of the corresponding page.

Make a published page draft

If you want to unpublish a page but you don't want to delete the page, you can use this feature. To make a page draft, click on the Make Draft button at the right side of the corresponding page. You will be asked for confirmation, confirm by Clicking on Draft button. Make draft button only appears in the Published Pages list.

Publish a draft page

If you want publish a draft page, click on the Publish button at the right side of the corresponding page. You will be asked for the confirmation, click Publish to confirm. Publish button only appears in the Draft Pages list.

Trash a page

Trashing a page will remove the page from both published and draft folder. This option is handy because you trash a page, you can still resotre it later. To trash a page, click on the Trash button at the right side of the corresponding page. You will be asked for confirmation, click Trash to confirm. Trash button does not appear in the Trashed Pages list.

Restore a page

To restore a trashed page, go to the Trash pages list. Click Restore button at the right side of the corresponding page. Click Restore when you will be asked for the confirmation.

Delete a page

To delete a page, go to the Trash pages and click on the Delete button at the right side of the corresponding page, you will be asked for confirmation. Confirm the delete action by clicking on Delete button.

Search a page

Go to the list of pages. Enter your search query in the search box at the top-right corner of the list and click search icon.

Media Files

In this page, you will get the list of image files used by your website. You can also add new image files and delete an existing one.

Add an image file

Click on Upload button, a form will appear. Give a file name. File name is useful for identifying the image. Then choose your image file in the next File field and then click Save.

Copy an image URL

In the image/file list, you will see a "Copy URL" button at the right side of each row. Click on the button and automatically the corresponding image URL will copied to your clip board. You can use the anywhere you want (such as in a generic page).

Delete an image

In the image/file list, click on the Delete button, a popup will appear for the confirmation, confirm to delete the image/file.

SEO

One of the most important section in the admin dashboard is the SEO section. From these pages, you can set SEO meta data for all the pages. It is recommended that you fill all the fields in the SEO pages for better search ranking.

General

In this section, you can set General SEO settings which is required for site-wide use.

Title Separator

Set the title separator here. Title separator will be placed between any page specific title and your website name. Recommended title separator is | because it takes less space in title area of the browser.

Enable Sitemap

Set it to ON to enable the sitemap, OFF to disable. It is recommended enabling the sitemap for better SEO. If you don't know what sitemaps are, take a look into this.

Include services in sitemap

Check this option to include service or tools pages in the sitemap. This will add tools pages URL in the sitemap. It is recommended that you check option.

Include pages in sitemap

Check this option to include generic pages in the sitemap. It is recommended that you check option.

Include Domain search results in sitemap

Check this option to include Domain check results in the sitemap. This will tell search engines which domains were searched in your website domain checker tool. It is recommended that you check this option.

Sitemap URL

Your website sitemap URL can be found in https://your-site.com/sitemap_index.xml (Enable sitemap and the sitemap URL will appear in your dashboard)

Robots.txt file

If you have any instructions for search engine robots, you can place them in this field. If you don't know what Robots.txt is, click here to learn.

After you change any of the fields, do not forget to save the settings.

Webmaster Tools

In this tab, you can place verification IDs of different search engines and service providers. Place only the ID of the verification meta, not the whole meta tag. The application takes care of the meta tags. As an example, if you are provided the meta tag <meta name="google-site-verification" content="abcdefgh-123456789"/> to verify your website from Google Search Console, place only the ID abcdefgh-123456789 in Google Search Console field.

Google Search Console

Place your Google Search Console verification ID in this field.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Place your Bing Webmaster Tools verification ID in this field.

Baidu Webmaster Tools

Place your Baidu Webmaster Tools verification ID in this field.

Alexa

Place your Alexa verification ID in this field.

Yandex

Place your Yandex verification ID in this field.

Pinterest

Place your Pinterest verification ID in this field.

Norton Safe Web

Place your Norton Safe Web verification ID in this field.

Homepage

In this tab, you can set meta description and Social share image for your website homepage.

Meta description

Meta description for your homepage.

Social Share Image

Set an image here that will appear in social sites when someone shares your website homepage URL.

Domain Availability Checker

In this tab, you can set title and SEO meta data for Domain Availability checker tool.

Search Page

These meta data will appear in the first page of the tool.

Title

Set title for the search page of Domain Availability checker tool (e.g. Check Domain Availability)

Description

Set description for the search page of Domain Availability checker tool.

Search Result Page

These meta data will appear in the search result page where there is Domain Availability information of the searched domain.

Title

Set title for the result page of Domain Availability checker tool. Include:domain to include the searched domain. (e.g. "Domain Availability information of :domain" which will be converted to "Domain Availability information of google.com" if someone searches for google.com availability)

Description

Set description for the result page of Domain Availability checker tool. Include :domain to include the searched domain.

Social Share Image

Set an image here that will appear in social sites when someone shares the Domain Availability search page or a search result page.

Contact Form

Set title, meta description and social share image for the contact form.

Affiliate Registrars

In this page, you can manage domain affiliate registrars and affiliate/referral links.

How this works

When someone searches a domain, if the domain is currently not registered and available to buy, a list of registrars with your affiliate link will be shown to him with a message that the domain is available to buy. If you are not sure what this means, add a registrar and search for a domain which is available to buy to see a live example.

Add new Affiliate Registrar

Click on Add new button to go to the add form. Fill the fields and click Add button.

Name

The name of registrar (e.g. GoDaddy)

URL

Your referral link. Don't forget to replace the domain part of the referral link with {domain}. If the referral link is https://godaddy.com/register-domain/?domain=newdomain.com&referral=your_referral_id, replace newdomain.com with {domain}. This will place the visitors domain in the referral link. So you will set this URL in the URL field https://godaddy.com/register-domain/?domain={domain}&referral=your_referral_id

Logo

The logo of the registrar. Place a PNG image for a better look.

Offer (optional)

If you have any message to show with the link, you can set it here.

Click Add button to save the registrar.

Edit a registrar

Go to the list of all registrars. To edit a registrar, click on the Edit button at the right side of the corresponding registrar. You will be redirected to edit form.

Disable a registrar

If you don't want to show a registrar temporarily, disable the registrar. You can enable it next time again. To disable a registrar, click on the disable button of the corresponding registrar and confirm in the popup. Note that, if there is no disable button, that means it's already disabled.

Enable a registrar

To enable a registrar, click on the enable button of the corresponding registrar and confirm in the popup. Note that, if there is no enable button, that means it's already enabled.

Delete a registrar

To delete a registrar, click on the delete button of the corresponding registrar and confirm in the popup.

Ads

In the Ads section, you can manage all your ads and ads settings (such as enabling or disabling ads)

General Settings

In this tab, you can enable disable ads on various parts of your website, edit ads.txt file.

Site-wide Ads

This switch is very important. Turn this on to enable ads site-wide, off to disable ads site-wide. If you want to stop showing ads in one click, set it off. All the ads in all pages will be turned off.

Domain Checker Ads

Turn this on to enable ads, off to disable ads in Domain Checker page.

Footer Affiliate Ad

Turn this on to enable ads, off to disable Footer Affiliate Ad.

Show Footer Affiliate Ad on

Footer affiliate is not a page-specific ad. You can select the pages where you want to show it. If you check Domain Checker Page under this field, Footer Affiliate Ad will be visible in Domain Checker pages. If you unselect an option, the ad will not be visible in that particular page. Play with it, check/uncheck different options and see in the front-page for better understanding.

When the below warning appears-

That means, ads are off site-wide, Go to Ads > General Settings and enable site-wide ads and the warning will disappear.

Domain Checker Ads

Set ads in the Domain Availability Checker pages

If you see the warning-

That means, even if you set ads in Domain Checker Ads tab, ads won't be shown. To show ads, enable Domain Checker Ads in Ads > General Settings.

Header Ad

Set ad at the top of the Domain Checker pages

Sidebar Top Ad

Set ad at the top of the sidebar of Domain Checker pages

Sidebar Bottom Ad

Set ad at the bottom of the sidebar of Domain Checker pages

Pages Ads

Set ads in Generic Pages

Header Ad

Set ad at the top of the Generic pages

Sidebar Top Ad

Set ad at the top of the sidebar of Generic pages

Sidebar Bottom Ad

Set ad at the bottom of the sidebar of Generic pages

Footer Affiliate Ad

Set text, links and icons of Footer Affiliate ad. Place shorter texts because long texts will make the ad look ugly. Always take a look after setting this ad in the public view.

Title (in the first block)

First Affiliate Link (the second block)

Title: Give a short title (e.g. Get a domain)

Link: Your affiliate link

Text: A small text (e.g. $0.99 first year)

Icon: Select an Icon

Second Affiliate Link (the third block)

Title: Give a short title (e.g. Get hosting)

Link: Your affiliate link

Text: A small text (e.g. $0.99/month)

Icon: Select an Icon

Button (the fourth block)

Button Text: e.g. Learn more

Button Link: e.g. URL to a page

Messages

This section of the admin dashboard is to see and manage all the messages received in your website through forms (e.g. contact messages). In the current version DomainAv, only contact messages can be received, so for now you can see and manage contact messages in this section. We will update if any other message is introduced in DomainAv in the upcoming versions.

All messages

In this page, you will see the list of all messages that your visitors have submitted for you.

Contact Messages

In this page, you will see the list of contact messages that your visitors have submitted for you.

Unread Messages

This page lists all the unread messages.

Trash Messages

This page contains all the trashed messages.

Read a message

Click on the subject of a message, the message will show.

Unread a message

Go to the list of message, click on the Unread button of the message you want to mark as unread. The button is at the right side of list and will only appear if you already read the message.

Trash a message

To move a message to the trash, go to a lists of messages and click on Trash button and confirm. Or, open a message, go to the bottom of the page and click on Move to trash button and confirm. Note that, if there is no trash button, that means the message is already in trash.

Restore a message

You can restore a message that you moved to the trash earlier. To restore a message, click Restore button in the messages list or open a trashed message and click Restore button that is at the bottom of the page. If there is no restore button, that means, the message is not trashed.

Delete a message

To delete a message, go to the trashed messages, click on the Delete button and you will be asked for confirmation. Confirm by clicking on the Delete button again.

Settings

You will control the whole website from the settings pages. You can set almost everything in the settings. This part of the documentation describes how you can manipulate the whole website using these settings.

Application Settings

Homepage Settings

Domain Checker Settings

Miscellaneous Settings

Profile

To go to your profile, click on the "user" icon at the top-right corner and click Profile.

Current Profile

You will get your profile information in this page.

Edit Profile

In this tab, you can edit your profile. You can change your name and avatar here.

Change Password

In this tab, you can change your password.

Current Password

Type your current password at this field.

New password

Type your new password here.

Confirm new password

Re-type your new password here.

Recover password

If you forget your password, you can recover your password also. Click "Forgot your password?" link in the log in and you will directed to give your email. Submit your email and you will be given a link in your email. Click on the link, you can set your password in the next screen.

Didn't receive the password reset email?

If you set SMTP information correctly, you should receive the email. If you have not set SMTP information already, you will not get the password reset email. In this case, log into your hosting file manager and open this log file public_html/application/storage/logs/laravel.log. You will find your reset link at the bottom of the log file.

Update Application

When an update is available, it is strongly recommended that you should update DomainAv. Because there may be some features upgrade, fixes or security patches available with the update.

How to apply update

Please follow the update instruction given with every update.

Add multiple admin

To add multiple admin, follow the procedure given below-

1. Log into your hosting file manager
2. Open public_html/application/app/Providers/AuthServiceProvider.php
3. Find a line that says // Add additional admin emails
4. Just after the line, add this line $adminEmails[] = 'another.admin.email@gmail.com'; (replace another.admin.email@gmail.com with your email)
5. Save the file
6. Register an account with the newly added email
7. Log in

Remove default admin

It is extremely important to remove the default admin email for security reason. Because everyone having this script knows the default admin credentials. If you have not set up your own admin account, set up now. If you have set up your own admin account, immediately follow the given procedure-

1. Log into your hosting file manager
2. Open public_html/application/app/Providers/AuthServiceProvider.php
3. Find a line that says // Default admin email
4. Remove the next line (it'll look similar to $adminEmails[] = 'default@devslib.com';)
5. Save the file.

Change Default URLs

In the current version of DomainAv, it's not possible to change default URLs (such as URLs of different tools, Contact page, Admin URL, etc.) through admin dashboard. But you can change them by a simple code edit. Let's see how you can do this.

• Log into your hosting file manager.
• Open public_html/application/app/Providers/RouteServiceProvider.php and follow the next instructions.

Change tool URL

• Find a line that says public const AVAILABILITY_ROUTE = '/domain-availability';
• Change /domain-availability to something else as you want (e.g. /check-domain)
• Save the file.

Change Contact Form URL

• Find a line that says public const CONTACT_FORM_ROUTE= '/contact';
• Edit contact as you wish, but stick to the URL structure rule.
• Save the file.

Change admin URL

You may want to change admin URL for security reason. You can absolutely change the admin URL, but you may need log in again.

• Find a line that says public const ADMIN_HOME= '/admin';
• Edit admin as you wish (e.g. secret-admin-panel, but stick to the URL structure rule.
• Save the file.

Hide admin URL

To hide the power icon with admin login link-

• Log into admin panel
• Go to Settings > Miscellaneous > Custom Codes and paste this code at the bottom of the Custom CSS Codes field

	.navbar .nav-item .nav-link[title=Login]{
		display:none;
	}

A better way to hide the admin URL will be implemented in the next update of DomainAv. If you want to do it now, you can see the source file at public_html/application/resources/views/public/layout/partials/navbar.blade.php But remember to take backup before you touch any code.

Contact

We provide support via support tickets, email and messenger. But you can get the fastest response through Support Tickets. To contact support, visit our support center.

Credits