Can some brilliant mozzer out there teach a moron/newbie like me how to 301 redirect several URL's I have?
-
Okay -
I am a supermodel. I look pretty. My legs are amazing. My cheekbones are high. But when it comes to 301 redirects I am the ugliest supermodel on the block.
Crap, here is the truth: I am not even a supermodel. I am just a middle-aged, goofy looking dude who is a newbie to fixing websites.
I have inherited several sites from a friend and I have been helping by creating solid contextual links internally and externally for a while. But, when Roger the wondrous SEOMoz robot talks to me, he says, "oops, it looks like your foolish freak self has a site that has both a www. and a non-www, which can create competition for yourself."
What do I do when he says that?
I just whisper a "thank-you" but gently press the skip this step button and go on with my life because I do not know how to make my non-www.'s redirect into the www. sites...
Now, I have sort of asked this question on the site before, but I was answered by someone who does not understand my level of ignorance.
any use of the word canonical or just put this lfwjkshj.htp/php inside the left ear of your mom, does not tell me anything
so, is there any willing and kind soul who can walk me through redirecting several of my sites to their proper home - kind of like Carl Chubbs Weathers did for Happy Gilmore in that Academy Award winning classic?
Thanks for the help in advance
best,
dumbhead
-
THe logic i like to follow, is make sure all domain names point to the correct version. to make that plain rather than, if B then redirect to A, you should say if Not A then redirect to A
For linux servers put this in your htaccess
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mydomain.com$
RewriteRule (.*) "http://www.mydomain.com/$1" [R=301,L]for a windows server I have a tutorial here
http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/how-to-fix-canonical-domain-name-issues
-
I'm downloading the manuals for CMS made Easy right now, but they're taking a bit of time to download. If you use the FTP login information you have to make an FTP connection to your site, you should be able to see (you may have to enable viewing of hidden files) a file called .htaccess (yes, there's a period in front of the file). You can download that to your computer, open it in a text editor (like notepad), make the edits that eyepaq mentions, then upload it again. I'd first make a copy of the file in case you screw something up.
When the manuals download, I'll look through them to see if there's a setting within their program that makes this easier for you.
-
To be honest I would't spend to much time on this. I don't see it as a huge priority. It's nice to solve it but if it requaiers hiring someone or getting the extra mile ... is just not worth it.
The process is easy for someone with some technical background.
Google is kind of smart in understanding that your non www version is not really duplicate content with your www version so I would let it slide if it's to hard to get it done.
If you do want to change it, CMS made easy dosen't support the htaccess management via the web interface so it needs to be done the "hard way" and that means you need to have FTP data to your domain ( domains), an FTP client so you can login, download the htaccess file, edit it and upload it again. If all that is over the tech abilities that's fine - it dosen't mean you should get another job. It's all technical.
Some easy ways to get this done: find someone you trust with some tech skills to do that - it take sless the 10 min or get a freelancer via elance or whatever to do that (but make sure they have some really good feedbacks from past clients are you are about to send them full access to your site)
Dose it make sense ?
-
Thanks a lot for requesting clarification - These sites are built on CMS made easy.
One example is:
http://www.affordablestoragelubbock.com and http://affordablestoragelubbock.com
another is
http://www.aplussuperstorage.com and http://aplussuperstorage.com
I can give you like five others, but it is pretty much the same issue
many many thanks for what you can offer
and I am not sure whether or not I have access to the htaccess file - why?
because I am a dumbbell who cannot be trusted with much more than an x-box controller
-
Howdy!
I understand that some of this stuff can sound like gibberish if you don't understand what's going on. If you can tell us your site's URL that would help us out. If not, can you let us know if you're using something like Wordpress or Joomla? We can tailor our advice to you a bit better if we know more about your site. Just like it's easier to give instructions about changing your oil if we know what kind of car you have and we can tell you exactly what to look for, rather than giving more general information.
Keri
-
I'm no brilliant mozzer but hopfully can still help.
If you want to redirect all non-www requests to your site to the www version, all you need to do is add the following code to your .htaccess file:
`RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]`
This will redirect any requests to http://my-domain.com to http://www.my-domain.com.
That's of course if you have htaccess. if you are using a windows based platform the approach is a little different.
What is htaccess ?
http://www.htaccess-guide.com/
In short - a file on your root domain that you can dl edit with text pad if needed and upload back in the same place.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Changing URL's During a Site Redesign
What are the effects of changing URL's during a site redesign following all of the important processes (ie: 301 redirects, reindexing in google, submitting a new sitemap) ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jennifer-garcia0 -
Is it best to 301 redirect or use canonical Url when consolidating two pages?
I have build several pages (A and B) with high quantity content. Page A is aged and gets lots of organic traffic, ranks for lots of valuable keywords, and has only internal links to this page. Page B is newer (6 months) and gets little traffic, ranks for no keywords, but has terrific content and many high value external links. As Page A and B are related to a similar theme, I was going to merge content from page B onto page A, but don't know which would be the best approach for handling the links going to page B. For the purposes of keep as much link equity as possible, is it best to us a 301 redirect from B to A or use a canonical URL from B to A?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cutopia0 -
301 Redirect and Loss of PA and DA
Mozzers, http:itsgr82bme.com Old domain homepage had a DA of 24 and a PA of 36 Currently redirected to http://thekidstime.com Homepage shows a DA of 6 and a PA of 1. That is a significant loss of authority. I thought a 301 is supposed to be better than that. What gives? What are the next steps, asking the old backlinks to update their links? Thanks for your help, Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | matt.nails0 -
Clarification around 301 redirects.
I’ve come across numerous blogs recently that suggest that SEOs should NOT do bulk re-directs to a category page. This has come as something of a surprise (doh!!) and I feel like I should already know this. It does seem like there is lots disagreement here so I thought that I’d ask what people’s opinions were to make sure that I get my thinking straight. I've read all the main Moz blog posts on this topic and, although really useful, they've left me none the wiser around a few specific questions. Here’s some more detail about the situation. We’re currently consolidating a lot of content into a main blog, which will be the focal point of new blogs posts that are created. This is different to the past, where we tended to create separate blogs for different products on separate domains. I’m currently considering how we move content across from one the older blogs to this new blog (which will soon sit on a subfolder of our main domain). I have three (!) questions: 1) Could you confirm that doing bulk re-directs a category page is bad? I already know that doing them all to the homepage is an error. 2) Should I re-direct the home page of the old blog on a separate domain to the relevant category page on the new site? The category page is related, but does not cover the EXACT topic. The category page covers our replacement product offering. It I shouldn't do this, where should I re-direct the old blog domain to? 3) I’ve recommended that we set up 301 redirects on a one-to-one basis, redirecting each piece of content to its new location on the old site. What about content that has been earmarked for removal and for which there is no obvious alternative? My previous recommendation has been to re-direct these pages to the most relevant category page on the new blog. Would it be better to let this 404 or, as an alternative, create a custom 404 for the users on the new blog highlighting the new content that we offer? Any help would be appreciated 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RG_SEO0 -
301 redirects for a redesign.
About to completely redo a client's site and I want to make sure I don't loose our link juice. The current site is a old template site from another provider. They host it and we do not have access at all to the site itself, so there will be no transferring of the site from server to server because they feel the site is their property. Basically the site is a monthly service not a product. So this will be a completely new website, including new URL structure. So my question is how do keep the link juice flowing to the new site? I know I need to use 301 redirects, but do I rebuild those old URLs on my site and redirect them to their new counterpart or what? The link profile is not that impressive, maybe 15 back links (all mainly going to the homepage). But they all are local and coming from pretty good domain authority. But its keeping us ahead of our competition. Back story: This is one of my local search clients, we now have them ranking #1 across the board in the local packs. After analyzing the traffic, they are losing 75% of all traffic because of the sites design. So a new site is a must. I build a lot of websites, but have never worried about the back link profile before now. Thanks for all your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | masonrj0 -
Clarity needed on 301 redirects
Looking to get a bit of clarity on redirects: We're getting ready to launch a new website with a simplified url structure (we're consolidating pages & content) & I already know that I'll have to employ 301 redirects from the old url structure to the new. What I'm not clear about is how specifc I should be. Here's an example of my file structure: Old website: www.website.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JSimmons17
New website: www.website.com Old website: www.website.com/vacations
New website: www.website.com/vacations Old website: www.website.com/vacations/costa-rica
New website: www.website.com/vacations/central-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/costa-rica/guanacaste
New website: www.website.com/vacations/central-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/mexico
New website: www.website.com/vacations/central-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/mexico/cancun
New website: www.website.com/vacations/central-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/bolivia
New website: www.website.com/vacations/south-america Old website: www.website.com/vacations/bolivia/la-paz
New website: www.website.com/vacations/south-america Do I need to redirect each and every page or would just redirecting just the folder be enough to keep my SEO juice? Many thanks in advance for any help!0 -
Can an incorrect 301 redirect or .htaccess code cause 500 errors?
Google Webmaster Tools is showing the following message: _Googlebot couldn't access the contents of this URL because the server had an internal error when trying to process the request. These errors tend to be with the server itself, not with the request. _ Before I contact the person who manages the server and hosting (essentially asking if the error is on his end) is there a chance I could have created an issue with an incorrect 301 redirect or other code added to .htaccess incorrectly? Here is the 301 redirect code I am using in .htaccess: RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/.]+/)*(index.html|default.asp)\ HTTP/ RewriteRule ^(([^/.]+/)*)(index|default) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www.example.com)?$ [NC] RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L] Could adding the following code after that in the .htaccess potentially cause any issues? BEGIN EXPIRES <ifmodule mod_expires.c="">ExpiresActive On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimmiedawn
ExpiresDefault "access plus 10 days"
ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType text/plain "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "access plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType application/x-icon "access plus 1 year"</ifmodule> END EXPIRES (Edit) I'd like to add that there is a Wordpress blog on the site too at www.example.com/blog with the following code in it's .htaccess: BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress Thanks0 -
What happens with a 301 redirected page?
Hi All, What happens with an indexed page that I 301 redirect?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
Is it removed from the Google index after a while? Thanks0