Root domain or sub domain? WWW. or NOT WWW......
-
I am a little confused! I use vidahost whom I have to say I find very helpful. I currently have the domains www.fentonit.co.uk and www.fentonit.com, now the websites was set up using the www.fentonit.com and I have www.fentonit.co.uk as a parked domain pointed to the www.fentonit.com.
Confused yet?
Now because I wanted the website to show www.fentonit.co.uk I added some code I was given by the guys to the .hta access file and viola up it comes as the .co.uk which is what I wanted.
So if your still here and havent A: Killed yourself yet or B: Went to the Pub
Then my questions are:
1. Is there going to be an issue from an SEO point of view having my site set up this way and if so how do I resolve it?
2. Would I be better using the root domain fentonit.co.uk (I think this is the root domain, although it iscurrently parked and pointed) as opposed to the sub www domain?.......and finally.......?
3. If it is set up as I stated what exactly would be my root domain, would it be the .co.uk or the .com?
Sorry and I completely understand if your not interested in answering it but if you do.....Thanks in advance and I'll take you to the pub...lol
Craig
www.fentonit.co.uk ( i think)
-
Yeah, i learned a lot today but it was a long day...lol. Big thanks to both you and Marcus.
The final thing I have to do is add the canonical link rel's and its of to the next problem.....
regards,
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
I have think you have got it set correctly I checked http://www.fentonit.co.uk/and both http://www.fentonit.com as well as each domain with or without the www. point to http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ outstanding job and your full website. I wish you luck with your company and let me know if I can be of assistance to you in the future.
Sincerely,
Thomas Zickell
Blueprint Marketing
-
I'm back:
Ok I promise this is the end of it:
Would I be correct in saying that I need to set up a 301 redirect for: http://www.fentonit.com, http://fentonit.com & http://fentonit.co.uk to be perfectly correct and will it be suffice to do this a page level or do I need to do this on every page on every url if I am letting Google know my preferred Domain?
and as the famous Inspector Columbus said....oh just one more thing .............Do I need to do this for an index page also.....?
I may have cracked it, when I run a checker this is what I received back for all the URL's:
`Results of the GSiteCrawler Server-Test
Tested at 6/26/2012 4:25:32 PM / from 217.43.237.128:URL=http://fentonit.co.uk
Result code: 301 (MovedPermanently / Moved Permanently)
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:25:31 GMT
Server: Apache
Location: http://www.fentonit.co.uk/
Content-Length: 234
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
New location: http://www.fentonit.co.uk/URL=http://www.fentonit.co.uk/
Result code: 200 (OK / OK)
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:25:31 GMT
Server: Apache
P3P: CP="NOI ADM DEV PSAi COM NAV OUR OTRo STP IND DEM"
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: 98defe8f962c0d1d3296da4a786cbd86=14a6986d7361cee18eca06c3dda7101d; path=/
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8`What do you think!?
My Eternal Gratitude,
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
I would use only one site to be honest. I realize there may be a small benefit but you would essentially have to juggle the duplicate content issue I understand if you want a blank page or if somebody goes to that URL to redirect their traffic to your main site. I have found personally using DYN to be very effective and a fantastic company you can use their webhop service for very little money take a look this would do it. http://dyn.com/dns/webhop/ or if you're current DNS registrar allows for it which it should. Maybe set up the Cname I would do something similar to what shown here
http://www.active-domain.com/help/help-web-forwarding.htm
I know there are a lot of forwarding services out there that will not interfere with the current 301 redirect you have on your main site. here is how Webhop would work with your current registrar http://dyn.com/support/webhops-and-redirections/#secondary
Hope this helps man,
Thomas
-
Hi Thomas,
Just when I thought I was out of the woods.....lol. It would appear that when I try to redirect www.fentonit.com to www.fentonit.co.uk it gives me this error:
"You cannot redirect to http://www.fentonit.co.uk. It would cause a redirection loop because /home/fentonit/public_html/ is at the same place as /home/fentonit/public_html/."
The reason I want to use the .co.uk as the main as I heat that there is a small benefit in using .co.uk for UK based sites.
What do you think?
Kind Regards,
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
I would definitely use a 301 redirect from the name you least like. So if you're root server is going to be www.fentonit.com I would set up www.fentonit.co.uk to redirect to www.fentonit.com along with having the home page canonical read
this will be different for every page so if it is "about us" you will put in the entire URL is seen in this
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
my honest opinion the easiest thing you can do to save yourself a lot of hassle stick with one domain. I know it seems hard but over the long run optimizing 2 domains is a nightmare in comparison to just having one. I would use just the .com I hope this answers your question and is of help man. We have all been there at one time. Nice site by the way.
Sincerely,
Thomas von Zickell
-
Thats brill Marcus,
Thanks a lot for your help, it took me a little to grasp this one. I can it seem use the Cpanel to set redirects without having to implement the code and then as a fail safe I'll Specify preferred domain directly with Google to Keep em Happy!!
Hopefull no more questions for a couple of hours, ....lol
Cheers for your support.!!
-
Hey, yeah, that is exactly the case, you just have the same website running on four URL's so it is technically a duplicate.
You need to implement the 301 redirects ideally but you can also specify a preferred domain in Webmaster Tools.
Details here:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=44231
Do that for now and then set the 301 for users when your guy can get online.
Shout if I can help.
Marcus
-
Hi Marcus & Thanks for the response! Now Im almost getting it but one problem is that I am not responsible for all the techy coding my developer is and he's in Spain - lucky him...........but you probably back from the pub by now and heres where I am at! (Full 12" Ext Remix Version)
It would appear that my domain in use is www.fentonit.co.uk which points to www.fentonit.com as a permament redirect with or without (www) which is fine,
however when I use a tool to check these 4 Url's:
http://www.fentonit.co.uk/
http://www.fentonit.com/
http://fentonit.co.uk
http://fentonit.com, it would appear to inform me that they are all identical as per below:
Which is as I thought and as they should be!!
| http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ | Home |
| http://www.fentonit.com/ | Home |
| http://fentonit.co.uk | Home |
| http://fentonit.com | Home |Meta Description Tag http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://www.fentonit.com/ Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://fentonit.co.uk Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://fentonit.com Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick So I then also checked to see what server response codes I was receiving and this is what was fed back:
I used all four URL's and they all came back with a 200 Server Response Code:
for www.fentonit.co.uk, this is what I recieved so I am thinking that I should have this is my primary domain and 301 redirects for the other 3?? Or do i just need to do it for the www.fentonit.com/ ?
| Server Response Code: 200 |
| Additional Headers: |
| Date | Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:16:43 GMT |
| Server | Apache |
| P3P | CP="NOI ADM DEV PSAi COM NAV OUR OTRo STP IND DEM" |
| Cache-Control | no-cache |
| Pragma | no-cache |
| Set-Cookie | 98defe8f962c0d1d3296da4a786cbd86=41f8de16b817ff27fedd2f45964f5f42; path=/ |
| Transfer-Encoding | chunked |
| Content-Type | text/html; charset=utf-8 |Does this make it any clearer? - sorry and thanks again.
Kind Regards,
Craig
-
Hi Thomas and many thanks for taking the time in responding. Yes duplicate content was one of my concerns, as would be canonical issues; Now it would appear that my domain in use is www.fentonit.co.uk which points to www.fentonit.com as a permament redirect with or without (www) which is fine,
however when I use the tool above with these 4 Url's:
http://www.fentonit.co.uk/
http://www.fentonit.com/
http://fentonit.co.uk
http://fentonit.com, it would appear to inform me that they are all identical as per below:
| http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ | Home |
| http://www.fentonit.com/ | Home |
| http://fentonit.co.uk | Home |
| http://fentonit.com | Home |Meta Description Tag http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://www.fentonit.com/ Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://fentonit.co.uk Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://fentonit.com Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick So I then also checked to see what server response codes I was receiving and this is what was fed back:
I used all four URL's and they all came back with a 200 Server Response Code:
for www.fentonit.co.uk, this is what I recieved so I am thinking that I should have this is my primary domain and 301 redirects for the other 3?? Or do i just need to do it for the www.fentonit.com/ ?
| Server Response Code: 200 |
| Additional Headers: |
| Date | Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:16:43 GMT |
| Server | Apache |
| P3P | CP="NOI ADM DEV PSAi COM NAV OUR OTRo STP IND DEM" |
| Cache-Control | no-cache |
| Pragma | no-cache |
| Set-Cookie | 98defe8f962c0d1d3296da4a786cbd86=41f8de16b817ff27fedd2f45964f5f42; path=/ |
| Transfer-Encoding | chunked |
| Content-Type | text/html; charset=utf-8 |Does this make it any clearer? - sorry and thanks again.
Kind Regards,
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
It looks to me like you may be producing duplicate content in Google eyes put both of your URLs into this tool http://tools.seobook.com/general/website-comparison/
you'll get duplicate content. The thing I'm worried about the most are interested and I should say is where are you pointing your if you have a favorite http://www.fentonit.com/ or http://www.fentonit.co.uk
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
I would take the one you prefer make it your canonical URL then redirect without a cloak with your other domain to your site. If it were me to be completely honest ( trust me I do understand the .com is a great domain to have however been in the UK you want the .co.uk) if it were me I would stick with the .com easier make it my canonical then you won't have any trouble ranking as you have a nice site that I would not risk staying in Google sandbox any longer than needed.
I would personally include the WWW. in my final domain I know it does not matter to Google however when people are linking to you they're more likely to type in WWW. so I personally would stick with it that way and the 301 redirect you can have someone type in whatever they want WWW. or Not it all goes to the same place. I hope I was of some help to you.
Respectfully,
Thomas Von Zickell
Blueprint Marketing
-
Hey Craig
You have four possible URLs here:
fentonit.co.uk
www.fentonit.co.uk
fentonit.com
www.fentonit.comYou want to sort this out like how you have suggested and then check the http response codes to ensure that you are getting all variations redirected to www.fentonit.co.uk. If you are using htaccess something like this should do the job (server setups vary sometimes)
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^fentonit.co.uk [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.fentonit.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^fentonit.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.fentonit.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.fentonit.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.fentonit.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]
You may also have an index page that you need to take care of
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.php\ HTTP/ RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ [R=301,L]
Also, it makes sense that all your internal links point to the www.fentonit.co.uk root and if you are a real perfectionist that any external links use the same root as well.
I'm off to the pub
Marcus
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
-
Competitors ranking with multiple sub-domains with no backlinks
Hi Moz, We are currently doing SEO for a hand therapy company called the Hand Therapy Group. They rank well, however, one competitor, Sydney Hand Therapy, is ranking higher than them for the term "hand therapy Sydney" (which is one of our highly focused keywords) with three different URLs (their home page, contact page and about page) despite the latter two pages have no backlinks. I understand why Google might see their homepage as being more relevant because their name is Sydney Hand Therapy (even though the Hand Therapy Group have more backlinks) but why do the other two URLs rank so well? Any help/info/advice would be brilliant! Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wearehappymedia1 -
Something happened within the last 2 weeks on our WordPress-hosted site that created "duplicates" by counting www.company.com/example and company.com/example (without the 'www.') as separate pages. Any idea what could have happened, and how to fix it?
Our website is running through WordPress. We've been running Moz for over a month now. Only recently, within the past 2 weeks, have we been alerted to over 100 duplicate pages. It appears something happened that created a duplicate of every single page on our site; "www.company.com/example" and "company.com/example." Again, according to our MOZ, this is a recent issue. I'm almost certain that prior to a couple of weeks ago, there existed both forms of the URL that directed to the same page without be counting as a duplicate. Thanks for you help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wzimmer0 -
Experience of moving to a new domain
Hi all just wondering if anyone has ever had any experience / tips / advice. moving from domain name a to b is well published all over the web and the practice is often discussed on here. but my question is has anyone ever done moving the domain from a to b and then after x time move back to domain a. i can't find any examples, notes anywhere on Google. thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andy-Halliday0 -
Multiple 301 Redirects on the same domain name
Hi, I'd appreciate some advice ont he below. I have a website, say www.site.co.uk that has just been redesigned using a new CMS. Previously it had URLs in the format /article.php?id=123, the new site has more friendly urls in the format /articles/article-slug. I have been able to import the old articles into my CMS using the same article IDs and I have created a unique slug for each post. So now in my database, I have the article id (from the querystring) and a slug. However, I have hundreds of old URLs indexed by Google in the format /article.php?id=123 and need to redirect these. My plan was to do the following. 301 Redirect /article.php?id=123 to an intermediate page, in this case /redirect/123. On this intermediate page I would do a database lookup for the article slug, based on the ID from the querystring, create a new URL and perform a second 301 redirect to my new URL E.g. /articles/article-slug-from-database. Whilst this works and keeps the site usable for visitors the two 301 redirects do worry me, as I don;t want Google indexing lots of /redirect/[article id] urls. The other solution is to generate hundreds of htaccess redirect rules that map old url to the new url. The first solution is much cleaner, but the two 301's worry me. Will Google work this out on it's own, is there a better way? Any advice is much appreciated. Cheers Rob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AmyCrompton1 -
Time for a new domain post-Penguin?
Hi there, Quick overview of a client who came to us after having the vast majority of their link value slashed by Penguin. Client only has a limited 'recovery budget' Client had been outsourcing SEO to a foreign company The website was 'keyword stuffed' when we arrived Links were of poor quality, the company clearly majoring on quantity rather than quality. Client was ranking #4 or #3 for a keyword which was bringing in sales. Post penguin, dropped to page 5 and then out of the top 100 for that keyword, losing 70% of sales. The client, under our supervision has Rewritten spammy content so they work for human beings (so it now reads well) Gone through the website and is removing old/duplicate and low-quality content De-emphasised other pages for the target keyword so that only one page majors on it. After doing the above has submitted a reconsideration request (about 2 weeks ago, so I know there's time). We are focussing on ensuring her content is written well and on building decent links to the site (i.e. to put some good-uns where the bad ones were). We're into month 2 of the 'clean-up exercise' and the site is still only ranking #90 for the keyword. Given the client's budgetary limitation, could it be more beneficial to consider a new brand identity and domain name to start afresh (without a 301 redirect) or should we just continue along the track we are doing with this client? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nobody15609869897230 -
Multi domain redirect to single domain
Hello, all SEOers. Today, I would like to get some ideas about handling multiple domains. I have a client who bought numerous domains under purpose of prevent abuse of their brand name and at the same time for future uses. This client bought more than 100 domains. Some domains are paused, parked, lived and redirected to other site. I don't worry too much of parked domains and paused domains. However, what I am worrying is that there are about 40 different domains are now redirected to single domain and meta refresh was used for redirections. As far as I know, this can raise red flag for Google. I asked clients to clean up unnecessary domains, yet they want to keep them all. So now I have to figure out how to handle all domains which are redirect to single domain. So far, I came up with following ideas. 1. Build gateway page which shows lists of my client sites and redirect all domains to gateway page. 2. Implement robots.txt file to all different domains 3. Delete the redirects and leave it as parked domains. Could anyone can share other ideas in order to handling current status? Please people, share your ideas for me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Artience0 -
Moving a database from a sub folder to a new domain
Hi Mozzers, I have a very popular property database on a subfolder of my main website. It accounts for about 2 thirds of my overall traffic. I'm moving the database to a new server, so my choices are now a sub domain or completely new domain. If I move my database to a new domain, will my main site lose SEO because of how popular the database is? Cheers Matt
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Horizon0 -
Is this Domain Change Worthwhile?
Hi- I have a client who has setup a new criminal law firm in the last few months. The URL is like: www.somenamelawyers.com ['somename' is the same # characters as their company name] I have run a successful AdWords a/c for them and many of the big traffic and conversion keywords include 'criminal lawyers'. From a SEO perspective, the long goal is to get traffic for 'criminal lawyers' and keywords that phrase match that. So I am considering migrating them to www.somenamecriminallawyers.com. I have researched this issue and understand the technicalities involved in moving. My question here is 'is this change worthwhile'. I think it is worthwhile because it really is in a sense rebranding them to be more clearly in a specific business domain, ie. criminal law. Also, they are a new outfit so they don't have a lot of backlinks yet. And mainly, they will get a SEO boost to their core keywords 'criminal lawyers'. Thanks in advance for your thoughts- Jules
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Juller0