Using DNS & 301 redirects to gain control over a rogue site
-
I'd appreciate peoples' views on the following please.
We have been approached by a client whose website does not rank # 1 for their own distinctive brand name due to this position being taken by a site they had developed for them by an affiliate some years back. The affiliate's site is clearly seen by Google as the definitive site for the brand - being older, having more links & in both Yahoo & DMOZ.
The relationship has soured with the affiliate & the client wants to take control of the affiliate site & have it 301 redirect to the 'real' brand site. The affiliate won't cooperate (funny that). However whilst the client doesn't have control over the affiliate's website, they do own the domain.
Given this, it seems that an option is to temporarily create a 1 page website on another server, change the affiliate website domain DNS settings to point to this, & in turn have that 301 re-direct to the client's website.
This is a bit of a round about approach, but necessary because the affiliate won't directly 301 the site they control - despite the client owning it. (As I say the relationship has soured).
If you think there's a better alternative approach to this problem (aside from litigation), I'd appreciate hearing it please.
Thanks.
-
Hi Ryan
Thanks for those useful comments & alternative ideas. I think we'll stick with the original idea & use the 301 approach rather than remove the listing if possible so the link juice can be directed to the client site.
Cheers
-
If you own the domain and the brand name trademark, you have many options.
As you suggested, you can take control over the domain, point it to a server you have control over and 301 it to your site. You don't actually have to put up a web page at all. Just add a redirect from the "old" domain to the new one.
You can also cancel the affiliation. The affiliate should be dependent upon getting his product from your client. Without the product there isn't a business.
You can contact Google and inform them there is a trademark dispute. Upon validating the product is your trademark, they can remove the listing.
Another option would be to take control over the domain, point it to a web server you control, then claim the domain in Google Webmaster Tools by uploading a file to your web server. Then you can point the domain back to the affiliate's website. In Google WMT, you can submit a request to remove the listing(s). The idea behind this method is it offers the least confrontational approach. Your issue is the listing, and this process would remove it.
I am not an attorney and the above information is being shared strictly as actions you could take to achieve the result you requested. Your client should speak with an attorney before taking any action as there may be legal consequences.
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
-
Redirects on multi language site and language detection
Hello! I have a multi language site in German and English. The site ranked well for the brand name and for German keywords. But after switching to a contend delivery network and changing the language detection method from browser language to IP location the site had indexing and ranking problems. Also in SERP the English homepage is shown for German keywords. On the other hand the language detection method is more accurate now. Current setup: The languages are separated via a folder structure for the languages: www.site.com/**en **and www.site.com/de. If the users IP is in Germany he is redirected via 302 from .com to .com/de. The rest of the world is redirected via 302 to .com/en. So the root www.site.com/ doesn't exist but has the most of the backlinks. Each folder has one sitemap under /de/sitemap.xml and /en/sitemap.xml. Each site and the root (.com, .com/de, .com/en) was added to WMT (no geo targeting) and the sitemaps were added (on the root domain both sitemaps and on the language specific sites just one). The sitemaps have no hreflang tag. Each page has an hreflang tag in the header pointing to itself and the alternate language. hreflang="x-default" is not set anywhere. Also on each page is a link to change language. Goals: From an SEO point of view we primarily target German speaking people. But a lot of international people (US, South America, Europe) search for our brand name so we want to serve them the English site. Therefore we want to: Get all the link juice when someone links to www.site.com to the German site Show Germans the German site in SERP and all others the English one Still serve the language automatically based on the location Do you have any idea how to achieve this? I think our main problem is that we want to push the German site the most but still serve the English site for most people (and therefore the Google Bot). Also does submitting the same sitemap twice (on the domain site and folders) do any harm? Any help oder links to ressources are greatly appreciated. I read a ton of articles but they are mostly for the case that english is the default language. Thanks for you help Moz community! Alex
Technical SEO | | AlexBLN1 -
My Alexa ranking dropped after a 301 redirect is that bad?
I had all of my non www pages redirect to the www versions. My alexa ranking dropped and keeps dropping after I did this. I'm guessing its because its tracking the non www version. Does anyone know if this is correct and should I worry?
Technical SEO | | CandleCam0 -
Help writing a .htacess file with the correct 301 redirects
Hello I need help writing a .htaccess file that will do two things. URL match abc.com and www.abc.com to www.newabc.com except one subdomain was also changed www.abc.com/blog is now www.newabc.com/newblog everything after blog matches. Any help would greatly be appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | chriistaylor0 -
How do I fix a 301 Redirect Loop?
Saturday I waas doing some correcting of some duplicate titles, including nofollowing tags, etc. (my main problem was duplicate titles due to tags and categories being indexed). Now this morning I see that one of my pages refuses to load, citing a 301 redirect loop. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/feeding/switching-baby-formula/ Originally, the page was posted under the wrong category. http://www.incredibleinfant.com/uncategorized/switching-baby-formula I resaved it under the correct category (feeding) and now it won't load. Can someone help me figure out how to correct this mess? Thanks so much Heather
Technical SEO | | Gotmoxie0 -
301 redirecting old content from one site to updated content on a different site
I have a client with two websites. Here are some details, sorry I can't be more specific! Their older site -- specific to one product -- has a very high DA and about 75K visits per month, 80% of which comes from search engines. Their newer site -- focused generally on the brand -- is their top priority. The content here is much better. The vast majority of visits are from referrals (mainly social channels and an email newsletter) and direct traffic. Search traffic is relatively low though. I really want to boost search traffic to site #2. And I'd like to piggy back off some of the search traffic from site #1. Here's my question: If a particular article on site #1 (that ranks very well) needs to be updated, what's the risk/reward of updating the content on site #2 instead and 301 redirecting the original post to the newer post on site #2? Part 2: There are dozens of posts on site #1 that can be improved and updated. Is there an extra risk (or diminishing returns) associated with doing this across many posts? Hope this makes sense. Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | djreich0 -
How do I 301 redirect a number of pages to one page
I want to redirect all pages in /folder_A /folder_B to /folder_A/index.php. Can I just write one or two lines of code to .htaccess to do that?
Technical SEO | | Heydarian0 -
302 or 301 redirect to https ?
I am redirecting whole site to https. Is there a difference between 302 or 301 redirect for seo? Site never been indexed. Planning to do that with .htaccess command RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
Technical SEO | | Kotkov
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}/$1 [R,L] There are plenty of ways http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/ssl-example-usage-in-htaccess.html Which way would be the best? Thanks is advance0 -
Trailing Slashes In Url use Canonical Url or 301 Redirect?
I was thinking of using 301 redirects for trailing slahes to no trailing slashes for my urls. EG: www.url.com/page1/ 301 redirect to www.url.com/page1 Already got a redirect for non-www to www already. Just wondering in my case would it be best to continue using htacces for the trailing slash redirect or just go with Canonical URLs?
Technical SEO | | upick-1623910