Redirecting a domain
-
I was setting up a new campaign and received the following error from Roger Robot.
"We have detected that the domain www.sitename.com and the domain sitename.com both respond to web requests and do not redirect. Having two "twin" domains that both resolve forces them to battle for SERP positions, making your SEO efforts less effective. We suggest redirecting one, then entering the other here."
I know about redirecting a PAGE using 301 Redirects and how to specify the www. canonical in Google webmaster tools, but is there a "DOMAIN" redirect that I'm missing.
What would you suggest doing given the error message above.
Thanks,
Bill
-
I thought it would be super cool if someone would post the exact syntax to use in .htaccess to make this happen. For all the hordes of info out there on redirects and htaccess, it's amazingly hard to find the code for this one. Here is what worked for me:
<code>RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]</code>
-
I looked at the server headers for the URL mentioned in the screenshot, and the site is running IIS6. I don't have the instructions for doing the domain redirect for that handy, and it's been ages since I've done it, but at least now we know we can't just say use .htaccess.
-
Thanks for the info.
I'll dig in and see what I can find.
-
I'm getting access to the FTP and Host Server.
If they have a cPanel I'll look for that. May need your help later, once I know more what I'm dealing with.
Thanks so far
-
If you're using Firefox, go get the Domain Details addon
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/domain-details/
Then go surf to your site and it should tell you (based on the headers) what kind of server you're running (for instance, seomoz is running Apache 2.2.14)
The most common solution is using htaccess, which can determine at the server level which version to show and 301 all traffic there. Not all web servers support this, though (which is why Kyle asked the question). IIS7+ can support it, as can the most popular open source ones (nginx, lighthttpd, Apache).
Here's an article on how it works
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/rewriterule-split-personality-explained
-
You would probably need more information than just looking at the client side. The only way that could work out is if the file extensions were .aspx or .php or something like that.
Essentially what i was getting to, is you would set the redirect differently depending on what type of hosting you are using. If it was microsoft base you would set it in IIS, while if it was linux based you would added it to your root .htacess file.
Hope that helped!
-
not sure... this site belongs to a friend. Can I tell from just looking at the html or do I need to access the server/host?
-
What type of hosting/server do you have linux based or microsoft?
-
Hi Bill.
Your issue is a common one and yes, there is a solution.
First step is to determine which version of a URL you wish to represent your site, with or without the www. For purposes of this discussion I'll assume you wish to keep the www prefix. In that case, you need to set up a redirect to send all non-www traffic to it's www equivalent.
If you have cPanel access to your web server, you should find a Redirect tool there. Otherwise, you need to modify your htaccess file. If that less sentence is not something you are familiar with, then contact your web host and let them know your wishes. They can easily set this up for you.
For a demo of how it works, type in "google.com" in your web browser. Notice how the address is always changed to http://www.google.com/. That action is because of a properly configured redirect.
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
-
Redirect Chain Domain
MozPro is highlighting some redirect chain issues with our domain that I do not recall ever setting up in our redirect list. In our Moz Pro Campaign I see the Site Crawl has flagged 36 Redirect Chain Issues. I understand how the redirect chain errors can happen but I do not recall ever manually redirecting our domain, yet I have http://stickylife.com, https://stickylife.com & https://www.stickylife.com all associated in one of our redirect chain errors. When looking at our redirect files I do not see any of these domain redirects and wonder how this has happened and how to fix it. It appears as though our HTTP and HTTPS is causing some redirection. I wonder if this is coming from our DNS settings?
Technical SEO | | StickyLife0 -
Should I resubmit a 301 redirected domain in Webmaster Tools
We recently switched over a .com site to a new server. The .com site had a .co.uk domain redirecting to it previously, but when the switchover happened, the .co.uk was forgotten about. We have now realised what has happened, but not before taking a hit with our rankings. The .co.uk is still indexed in Google and now that we have sorted the redirects they are pointing to the right places. My question now; is there anything further I need to do? I know that the .co.uk will soon be removed from the SERPs, but I just want to make sure I haven't forgotten anything.
Technical SEO | | Ben_Malkin_Develo0 -
301 redirect Question
Hi all, I have a client who has a domain lets say www.xyz.de which is redirected 301 to www.zyx.de. Now they're working on a relaunch and they want to use the www.xyz.de as their origibnal doman after that. So, at the end the www.zyx.de - which is indexed by Google - should be redirected to www.xyz.de. It vice versa. So the redirect becomes the original and the original becomes the redirect 😕 Is there anything we have to care off? Or will that run into the hell? Thanx. Seb.
Technical SEO | | TheHecksler0 -
Website redirects
We consolidated websites. All the international sites have been brought under the roof of our mothership site based in the US: www.crisisprevention.com ... We mapped out all of the URLs and where they should be redirected. However, if someone types in, say, www.crisisprevention.co.uk it redirects to the mothership site, BUT the old URL hangs around no matter what page you navigate to. I feel like it has duplicate content ramifications or worse. I would like opinions on this, so I can take my findings to IT and figure out a solution. Here’s another example: http://www.positive-options.co.uk and another http://www.positive-options.com
Technical SEO | | spackle0 -
301 Redirect Have no ranking
Hi Guys wonder if you can help my site www.economy-car-leasing.co.uk has just been 301 from www.economyleasinguk.co.uk The reason for the move is the site is going to be structured for both cars and vans separately we did the 301 around 8 weeks ago and initially we thought everything went well, all the new site was indexed within 24 hours, we updated WMT on the old site we monitored around 150 keywords many were top 10 in Google 99% were top 5 pages However 8 weeks on we do not rank for hardly anything, i have confirmed all the redirects are working, we have 200 ok from the home page and all the other canonical pages return 301 we just implemented the canonical tag to all pages. we did factor that we will get some down time but not 8 weeks worth, i have done a 301 on this scale before with no real loss of rankings (Different site) Really tempted to put the old site back however its not what i want to do, Bing seems to have picked up on the change really well but im thinking Google just needs time The change looks like its done perfectly and everything is working as it should however it looks like that none of the original rankings or juice has been pushed over from Google yet and im wondering how long does it typically take to get the site ranking again site have gone from 17k unique s per month to less than 2k Paul
Technical SEO | | kellymandingo0 -
Temporary redirects
why is wordpress creating redirects from trackbacks and what can i do about it? according to seomoz i have several of these kinds of temporary redirects: http://redlandsorthodontics.com/about-us-2/meet-the-staff/redlands-orthodontics/trackback/ redirects to http://redlandsorthodontics.com/about-us-2 what are trackbacks anyway since i didn't purposely create them?
Technical SEO | | dad7more0 -
New project old domain should I 301 redirect while new sites built
I just took on a larger scale e-commerce project and came across a tricky road block that I need some advise on. Ok I'm building the site from scratch and due to it's complexity it may take 3-4 months before I have it designed and coded. The client has a domain name that has some decent page/domain authority and I would hate to loose that while the sites being built. Currently I have nothing to display as his previous site got hacked and it was deleted by the previous web admin. Being that a blog has already been approved as part of the project I already installed wordpress to keep the domain fresh however here's the issue, I installed wordpress in a folder called blog and debating if I should 301 redirect or 302 redirect his index here? The blog will always reside in the blog folder even after launch. Will performing a 301 redirect pull all the juice away from my index page? I'm assuming yes. IF so what would occur once the project is complete and I make the ecommerce site live in the index page? Thanks in Advance! Mike
Technical SEO | | MikeDelaCruz770 -
Redirect and ranking
Wehave 2 websites for the same keyword Website 1 is indexed on place 2 but we do not like that name any longer it does not fit our long term marketing Website 2 is indexed on place 5 and this domain fits better What will happen if we redirect website 1 to website 2? Fall down to postion 5 Fall down to position 5 and after a certain period we get back at position 2 or 3 thanx in advance for your reply
Technical SEO | | turnon0