I know there are some suggested work-arounds using IIS etc. but want to re-iterate a suggestion I made long ago. 

It's a topic some call 'marketing-friendly URLs' (as opposed to crawler-friendly URLs).  The need is to be able to communicate a friedly URL to a customer that takes them to a specific page (forums.dotnetnuke.com, for example).  Folks have offered various solutions through IIS, but I've theorized on a more 'user-friendly' method of accomplishing this. 

The marketing-friendly URL has to be added to the Portal Alias table.  I'm suggesting a new field be added to the Portal Alias to allow the Admin to specify a "Home Page" per Portal Alias.  This would solve the problem and minimize the need to manipulate this is IIS.  Any thoughts from those familiar with the core on how difficult or practical this would be?  By the way, if none were specified the Site Home Page would be the default.

I've been putting off solving my 'marketing friendly url' because I thought the above suggestion was a little too complicated.  I recently thought more about how to do it then....whamo! I see a product that I didn't understand at first but then looking at it is solves my exact problem....and more.

At first glance it looks like it's just AOL Keyword but then I read the documentation and saw you could put the 'keyword' at the end of the URL.  So now I have two options.  1) Do what I'd already planned on www.domain.com/friendlyword or 2) Publish something that says go to www.domain.com and use keyword 'friendly'.  All without making IIS changes.  It's called DNN ShortCut, if anyone else is interested.