Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. How to 301 multiple domain names to a single domain

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How to 301 multiple domain names to a single domain

    Technical SEO
    7
    9
    2812
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Grenadi
      Grenadi last edited by

      Hey,

      I tried to find and answer to this seemingly simple question, but no luck.

      So, I have one domain name with a website attached to it. I also registered all the other domain names that are similar to it or have different extensions - I want to redirect all the other domain names to my one main domain name without getting penalised by the big G.

      It looks like this:

      www.mainsite.com - this is my main domain

      I also have www.mainsite.com.au, www.mainsite.org, and www.mainsite.org.au which I all want to just redirect to www.mainsite.com

      I have been told that the best way to do this is a 301 redirect, but to do that you need to make a CNAME for all the other domains that points to www.mainsite.com.

      My problem is that I cannot seem to create a CNAME record for http://mainsite.com - I have it working for http://www.mainsite.com but not the non www record.

      What should I be doing differently? Is it just my DNS provider is useless?

      Thanks,

      Anthony

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • KeriMorgret
        KeriMorgret @Uramark last edited by

        Michael, you might want to open a new question for this, as old threads don't get bumped when new content appears.

        If you don't have any content or anything on the exact match domains, the 301 really isn't going to help you.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Uramark
          Uramark last edited by

          Is it black-hat SEO to send bluewidget.com, redwidget.com, and greewidget.com to widgetbrands.com (send all to the same page, or same domain home0?

          Since the domain name matching with keywords is important, this strategy makes sense.  It is allowed? How many domains can I 301 redirect to widgetbrands.com if I want to target all the colors of widgets?

          KeriMorgret 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • KeriMorgret
            KeriMorgret last edited by

            Hi Anthony,

            I'm going through older questions in Q&A. Were you able to sort this out, or are you still looking for answers?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • KeriMorgret
              KeriMorgret last edited by

              When I've needed to do this, I've been able to go to the control panel at my registrar (godaddy, namecheap, 1and1, etc) and have those domains forwarded with a 301.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • oznappies
                oznappies last edited by

                If you are doing this at the the DNS level (i.e. CNAME) you actually want an A Record to point all the domain names to the one IP Address. You would then need to do a ReWrite to handle the 301 redirects. You would also need to ensure you verify all the domains in Google Webmaster Tools and set the prefered domain to www.mainsite.com (note you we need to use settings -> prefered domain in site configuration). I would also add a canonical meta tag to the head of each page.

                Since you have the .au is you site Australia wide or international. If it is Australia wide you should have the .com.au as the main web address.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • A_Q
                  A_Q last edited by

                  Do you have access to .htaccess on your server?

                  You could set a simple redirect to redirect all traffic to your website root to the domain you want.

                  Try this....  http://www.affiliatebeginnersguide.com/domains/redirection.html

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Ionmoon
                    Ionmoon last edited by

                    Hi

                    A CNAME is not the best way to point a 301 redirect. ( often called poor mans redirect) To know which way to make a 301 rewrite, you first have to know if you are using an Apache server, you are working with PHP,ASP, Cold fusion or ISS.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • ReneReinholdt
                      ReneReinholdt last edited by

                      Hi there

                      Actualy your website host should be abel to handle this for you, if not you have a seriusly shitty surplier 🙂

                      What you need to have them set up is more commonly known as a "domain alias" so you set up the webhotel with the primary domain and then have them set the other domains up to be aliases to that domain.

                      Or you could use the geeky way out. Set up all the domains to point to the server on where your site is hosted. Have your host setup your server to accept the in coming domains. and then setup the .htaccess (on appache platform) to 301 all other (including subdomains www) to the primary domain.

                      But the easier way out is clearly to have your hosting company set it up for you.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • Leaf-a-mark

                        Redirect multiple domains to 1 domain or not?

                        Hi there, I have client who has multiple domains that already have some PA and DA. Problem is that most websites have the same content and rank better on different keywords.
                        I want to redirect all the websites to 1 domain because it’s easier to manage and it removes any duplicate content. Question is if I redirect domain x to domain y do the rankings of domain x increase on domain y? Or is it better to keep domain x separately to generate more referral traffic to domain y? Thanks in advance! Cheers

                        Technical SEO | | Leaf-a-mark
                        0
                      • snorkel

                        1000 Pages on old website. What to do with the 301 redirects for this domain?

                        Hi Moz Community, I have a 301 redirect question... I just acquired an old domain: Totally in my niche Domain is 14 years old Website exists of 1000 pages Great amount of backlinks Website is offline since about 2 weeks Will place a new website online asap with new url structure For the 50 best scoring pages I wrote a new, but fully comparable/related article. I will put a 301 redirect from those old to the new pages. My question: What to do with the 950 other url's? Should I put a 301 redirect to the homepage? Should I forward those pages to the 404 page? Should I divide the 950 url's with a 301 redirect to the 50 new ones? Another solution maybe? Any idea what would be the best solution so we can save as much Google juice as possible? Thanks in advance!

                        Technical SEO | | snorkel
                        0
                      • AL123al

                        Old domain to new domain

                        Hi, A website on server A is no longer required. The owner has redirected some URLS of this website (via plugin) to his new website on server B  -but not all URLS. So when I use COMMAND site:website A , I see a mixture of redirected URLS and not redirected URLS.Therefore two websites are still being indexed in some form and causing duplication. However, weirdly when I crawl with Screaming Frog I only see one URL which is 301 redirected to the new website.  I would have thought I'd see lots of URLs which hadn't been redirected. How come it is different to using the site:command? Anyway, how do I move to the new website completely without the old one being indexed anymore. I thought I knew this but have read so many blogs I've confused myself! Should I: Redirect all URLS via the HTACESS file on old website on server A? There are lots of pages indexed so a lot of URLs. What if I miss some? or Point the old domain via DNS to server B and do the redirects in website B HTaccess file? This seems more sensible but does this method still retain the website rankings? Thanks for any help

                        Technical SEO | | AL123al
                        0
                      • AL123al

                        Umbrella company and multiple domains

                        I'm really sorry for asking this question yet again. I have searched through previous answers but couldn't see something exactly like this I think. There is a website called example .com. It is a sort of umbrella company for 4 other separate domains within it - 4 separate companies. The Home page of the "umbrella" company website is example.com. It is just an image with no content except navigation on it to direct to the 4 company websites. The other pages of website example.com are the 4 separate companies domains. So on the navigation bar there is : Home page = example.com company1page = company1domain.com company2page= company2domain.com etc. etc. Clicking "home" will take you back to example.com (which is just an image). How bad or good is this structure for SEO? Would you recommend any changes to help them rank better? The "home" page has no authority or links, and neither do 3 out of the 4 other domains. The 4 companies websites are independent in content (although theme is the same). What's bringing them altogether is under this umbrella website -  example.com. Thank you

                        Technical SEO | | AL123al
                        0
                      • w0lfiesmithUK

                        Switching from a .org to .io (301 domain redirect)

                        I'm considering switching my main site from a .org to .io address; the .org is an exact match domain which helped to kickstart it a few years ago and now has about 50% repeat visitors, but was thrown off the Apple affiliation program for trademark infringement. I've found and purchased a nice (non-infringing) .io domain, and I've read the advice here on how to properly 301 the old domain; but my question is - does it matter that it's .io? Is this going to significantly hurt my rankings, even when everything has been 301'd properly? Another thought I had is that I may actually come out better off in the long run, what with Google penalties being applied to exact match domains. Is this a ranking suicide? If so, I'm tempted to leave it as is; even without the affiliation, it's making a good amount every month in ad fees that I don't want to disrupt. Thanks all!

                        Technical SEO | | w0lfiesmithUK
                        0
                      • JU1985

                        Handling 301s: Multiple pages to a single page (consolidation)

                        Been scouring the interwebs and haven't found much information on redirecting two serparate pages to a single new page.  Here is what it boils down to: Let's say a website has two pages, both with good page authority of products that are becoming fazed out.  The products, Widget A and Widget B, are still popular search terms, but they are being combined into ONE product, Widget C.  While Widget A and Widget B STILL have plenty to do with Widget C, Widget C is now the new page, the main focus page, and the page you want everyone to see and Google to recognize. Now, do I 301 Widget A and Widget B pages to Widget C, ALTHOUGH Widgets A and B previously had nothing to do with one another?   (Remember, we want to try and keep some of that authority the two page have had.) OR do we keep Widget A and Widget B pages "alive", take them off the main navigation, and then put a "disclaimer" on the pages announcing they are now part of Widget C and link to Widget C? OR Should Widgets A and B page be canonicalized to Widget C? Again, keep in mind, widgets A and B previously were not similar, but NOW they are and result in Widget C. (If you are confused, we can provide a REAL work example of what we are talkinga about, but decided to not be specific to our industry for this.) Appreciate any and all thoughts on this.

                        Technical SEO | | JU1985
                        0
                      • Motivators

                        Multiple Domains on 1 IP Address

                        We have multiple domains on the same C Block IP Address. Our main site is an eCommerce site, and we have separate domains for each of the following: our company blog (and other niche blogs), forum site, articles site and corporate site. They are all on the same server and hosted by the same web-hosting company. They all have unique and different content. Speaking strictly from a technical standpoint, could this be hurting us? Can you please make a recommendation for the best practices when it comes to multiple domains like these and having separate or the same IP Addresses? Thank you!

                        Technical SEO | | Motivators
                        0
                      • kwoolf

                        What SEO considerations for multiple languages on a single page?

                        I am working on a language teaching site for Chinese speakers learning English. I consider myself above average when it comes to basic SEO issues, but all I know here is that Google doesn't like multiple languages on a single page. Without getting into too many details, both Chinese and English text will appear on the same page with links, tags, phonetic spellings, etc. I'm hoping someone here knows the science about using the lang="zh" xml:lang="zh" attributes within text and the effects on ranking for text within the declarations. And it'd be great if there was clarification on the link juice passed using the hreflang attribute for both internal and external links. Also, of course, any info on using both English and Chinese characters in the URL would be most helpful. A heads up on any other language specific SEO issues would also be much appreciated. My goal is to get the most out of both languages per page in terms of ranking.

                        Technical SEO | | kwoolf
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.