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.
Someone is redirecting their url to mine
-
Hello,
I have just discovered that a company in Poland www.realpilot.pl is directing their domain to ours www.transair.co.uk. We have not authorised this, neither do we want this. I have contacted the company and the webmaster to get it removed. If you search for the domain name www.realpilot.pl we (www.transair.co.uk) come up top. My biggest worry is that we will get penalised by Google for this re-direct as it appears to be done using some kind of frame. Does anyone know anything about this kind of thing?
Many Thanks
Rob Martin
-
Thanks for catching that Ryan! Having a bad copy/paste day
-
I believe the link you wish to share is: http://usablelayout.com/articles/automatically-break-out-iframe.
-
Hi Rob,
If you can edit your template, you could add the piece of javascript below to the head of each page on your site.
As long as the visitor has javascript turned on in their browser, this will detect that the page is rendered on the wrong URL and send it back to the correct page, outside the Iframe.
You can find more about this on this page (thanks to Ryan for catching the broken link)
There is a nice bonus in that you will then see traffic from referring sites in your server logs. You can very easily follow up with webmasters who have been duped into providing the links - show them how the other site has fraudulently acquired a link from them and suggest that they correct the link to point to your site.
I love it when I find a way to eliminate those guys with the other hats AND get the benefit of all their hard work!
Have a great day,
Sha
-
I believe Sha's answer drills down to the root issue and addresses the original question best.
-
Hi Rob,
First of all ...this is not a domain redirect.
What they are actually doing is pulling the content of your site into their own using an iframe.
They are not able to do anything through your site by doing this as the content is rendered by the browser and not their server. So, the question is why they would do it.
Best guess: This could be someone who is planning to set up some kind of low quality site (possibly full of ads), but wants to build up backlinks for the domain. They can go to blogs, forums etc and leave comments & posts with their URL. The webmaster checks the URL and sees your site, so approves the comment or post...after a few months of doing this, BAM! they remove the iframe and let loose their real content.
hmmm...
Sha
-
Himansu is right just block from via .htaccess file
This brings us a bigger issue not often discussed. Since anyone can link or redirect to your site, this creates a dilemma for search engines.
For example lets say I buy a porn site and decide to create links from that porn site to Portlandhaircuts.com, with malicious intention for that site.
-
You wont be penalised for such type of redirect. You can block all the traffic coming from their domain or IP via .htaccess file.
-
Thanks for your response, that clears things up. It's just not something I've come across before. We are always dealing with content being stripped and websites using our GA but this was new to me. Strangely as it turns out they thought they were doing us a favour as they have closed their business now.
-
It could do, yes but highly unlikely. Do you have any idea what they might be achieving from this?
You say that you've contacted the company to get it removed so hopefully they should comply with this quickly. It would take Google a very long time to pick up on this anyhow. If the worst was to happen and you got penalised, you could just explain in Webmaster Tools and it would be fine plus you could sue them for a hefty sum as well. The chances of you getting penalised for this are next to nil anyway.
Can I suggest that you give them a call?
+48 914325555
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
-
Is 301 redirect the only way when using Vanity URLs?
We have been using vanity urls for some of our pages. Mostly the pages that have a vanity URL have a long URL length. But now the problem is, the vanity URL is getting displayed on the search engine when the particular keyword related to the page is entered. I checked the google search console, the vanity URL is indexed and the original URL remains unindexed. What should I do? Is adding 301 redirect to the vanity URLs are solution? Since some of vanity URLs are not redirecting to the original. Some of the original pages are not getting traffic. Also, can using canonical tag help?
Technical SEO | | tejasbansode0 -
Backlinks that go to a redirected URL
Hey guys, just wondering, my client has 3 websites, 2 of 3 will be closed down and the domains will be permanently redirected to the 1 primary domain - however they have some high quality backlinks pointing the domains that will be redirected. How does this effective SEO? Domain One (primary - getting redesign and rebuilt) - not many backlinks
Technical SEO | | thinkLukeSEO
Domain Two (will redirect to Domain One) - has quality backlinks
Domain Three (will redirect to Domain One) - has quality backlinks When the new website is launched on Domain One I will contact the backlink providers and request they update their URL - i assume that would be the best.0 -
Numbers in URL
Hey guys! Need your many awesome brains. 🙂 This may be a very basic question but am hoping you can help me out with some insights beyond "because Google says it's better". 🙂 I only recently started working with SEO, and I work for a SaaS website builder company that has millions of open/active user sites, and all our user sites URLs, instead of www.mydomainname.com/gallery or myusername.simplesite.com/about, we use numbers, so www.mysite.com/453112 or myusername.simplesite.com/426521 The Sales manager has asked me to figure out if it will pay off for us in terms of traffic (other benefits?) to change it from the number system to the "proper" and right way of setting up these URLs. He's looking for rather concrete answers, as he usually sits with paid search and is therefore used to the mindset of "if we do x it will yield us y in z months". I'm finding it quite difficult to find case studies/other concrete examples beyond the generic, vague implication that it will simply be "better" (when for example looking at SEO checklists and search engine guidelines). Will it make a difference? How so? I have to convince our developers of the importance and priority of this adjustment, or it will just drown in the many projects they already have. So truly, any insights would be so very welcome. Thank you!
Technical SEO | | michelledemaree2 -
Is there a tool to see all redirects?
I'm thinking this is a silly question, but I've never had to deal with it I thought I'd ask. Ok is there a tool out there that will show all the redirects to a domain. I'm working on a project that I keep stumbling on urls that redirect to the site I'm studying. They don't show up in Open Site or ahrefs as linking domains, but they keep popping up on me. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | BCutrer0 -
Special characters in URL
Will registered trademark symbol within a URL be bad? I know some special characters are unsafe (#, >, etc.) but can not find anything that mentions registered trademark. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | bonnierSEO0 -
301 redirect not working
Hi there! I have recently moved a domain that has been indexed by google and setup redirects so that it forwards to the new domain. It seems like the only redirect that actually is working is the canonical and main domain but every other page and or page nested within a folder are not working. Here is an example of some of the redirects. Am I doing this wrong? It seems to be going to the new domain but can't find the actual pages.... RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | twotd
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !agoodsweep.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://agoodsweep.com/$1 [L,R=301]
redirect 301 woodstoveservicerepair.html http://agoodsweep.com/woodstoveservicerepair/
redirect 301 /westchesterchimney.html http://agoodsweep.com/west-chester-chimney/ Thanks in advance for any help!!0 -
Removing Redirected URLs from XML Sitemap
If I'm updating a URL and 301 redirecting the old URL to the new URL, Google recommends I remove the old URL from our XML sitemap and add the new URL. That makes sense. However, can anyone speak to how Google transfers the ranking value (link value) from the old URL to the new URL? My suspicion is this happens outside the sitemap. If Google already has the old URL indexed, the next time it crawls that URL, Googlebot discovers the 301 redirect and that starts the process of URL value transfer. I guess my question revolves around whether removing the old URL (or the timing of the removal) from the sitemap can impact Googlebot's transfer of the old URL value to the new URL.
Technical SEO | | RyanOD0 -
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