Setting up cookies craigslist style?

I want to set up a web site that has works kind of like craigslist.org.


What I am talking about is if you clear your cookies and go to craigslist.org, you will be brought to their main page with a list of all the locations. For instance, you click on "Denver" and it brings you to denver.craigslist.org.

Now, whenever you go to craigslist.org, you are automatically forwarded to denver.craigslist.org until you navigate to another location such as atlanta.craigslist.org and from that point on you are automatically forwarded to atlanta.craigslist.org.

I'm making sense, right?

Well, I am wondering how I could set this up. Basically, I want to have a site that will have different locations that the user can click on and once that person clicks on a location, whenever they go to the main site again they will automatically be forwarded to the site for that location. It will either be location.domain.com or domain.com/location, it doesn't really matter to me at the moment if I use a subdomain or a subdirectory.


What is the easiest and least technical way to do this for someone who is unfamiliar with programming languages?

Thanks in advance.

 

Dim location As String = Request.Cookies("location").Value
If Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(location) Then
       Response.Redirect("http://www.yourdomain.com/" & location)
End If

Code (ASP):

The above is a very simple way of achieving what you want with the code to sit in the landing page (assuming you want it to run everytime someone hits the landing page)

 

So, "location" is a variable that is pulled from the cookie that was received from one of the location pages?

So basically, this code is for the landing page?

How do I make the cookie for the location pages? I tried looking at the source of craigslist.org for clues but did not see anything.

 

I would create a sub routine held centrally and then just call it with the location details - the below example is for a cookie that lasts 14 days

Shared Sub AddLocation(ByVal Location As String)
        Dim TheCookie As New HttpCookie("location")
        TheCookie.Value = Location
        TheCookie.Expires = Now.AddDays(14)
        HttpContext.Current.Response.Cookies.Add(TheCookie)
End Sub

Code (ASP):

To call it would then just be AddLocation("NewYork") as an example