I need to build 40 identical web sites that all have different domain names. These are for insurance agents in different markets around the US. I will supply them with content management access where they can make text changes on specific pages to give their site to give it some personalization (I'll be the administrator in case they have problems). I have used FrontPage for a couple years. But, I think I need to go a different route to do the following task:

I want the ability to change something on a "main" or "template" site...and for that change would be distributed automatically to all 40 sites. For instance, to add a weekly insurance tip and monthly newsletter (and I'd hate to have to do this to 40 different sites).

Is this possible? If so, what technology/software/programming language would I need to learn to achieve this concept?

I essence this seems a fairly simple problem, and one that is easily dealt with by using php. As each site is to have a unique domain name simple use of the global variable $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] will return the domain name. It is then simply a matter of the php selecting the correct images/content for the relevant site.

I assume that all 40 sites will be hosted on the same server? Let's assume that anyway. It is then simply a matter of uploading the changes to the server and using the "include" function within php to have each site use the same information.

As far as technology goes: any decent hosting service should provide php as standard now. For software, well you could stick with FrontPage, but I would suggest Homesite if you want to hard code or Dreamweaver if you want a WYSIWYG package. Language: has to be php.

Hope this helps/makes sense. If you need a hand - give me a shout