Nope, that didn't work.

In your opinion does my script to redirect Albigen.Net to the DNN directory conform with standard procedure in a case where the hosting provider will not point a domain name to a subdirectory?

I'm starting to wonder whether my hosting provider is somehow caching the SQL data, but that's a different issue.

I need to reserve Albigen.Com as the root because I have other applications above it, only one of which is DNN, which is in the /portals subdirectory. But to make sure, I tried your suggestion anyway.

Since I'm in the process of upgrading DNN  - I'll probably end up editing the portal aliases on my local server, wiping out the current installation and database on the website, and pretend like I'm starting over from scratch. Obviously the website alias can't be edited from the website while the application is running, but I can edit the website alias when the application is running on my local server.

One distracting idea is the notion that the only differenxce between a child portal and a parent portal is that the child portal has a subdirectory. But that's only a side issue, because the HomeDirectory field in the Portals table is indicated to be Portals/0, which is as it should be.

I don't see a field anywhere in the database that designates whether the portal is a parent or a child, so maybe this is simply implicit - i.e., a reflection of the portal alias URL.

Anyway, thanks again, appreciate your help.  Steve

The hosting provider tells me I have to rely on URL rewriting to get rid of the string "/portal" in the URL

I.e., to convert www.albigen.net/portal to simply www.albigen.net     So I have to figure out the rule for that.

The situation differs with the method described by Lee Sykes (DNNCreative, Issue 17) in that his hosting service will point a domain to a subdirectory, using host headers, while mine will not. Mine will only point a domain name to the root.

Just to complete the thread ... The hosting provider suggested a better script than the one I posted above, so I put this in the default.aspx file in the root of my site:

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)        
   If InStr(UCase(Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME")), UCase("albigen.net")) > 0 Then
       Response.Redirect("/portal")
   End If
End Sub

Which is more scientific than the one in the earlier post.

Now I need to do some reading on URL rewriting.   

Thanks for your help Ian.