Forum Moderators: phranque
How can we protect our site from all variations?
The missing trailing slash is not so much of a problem. It's such a common error that the SE's account for it.
Jim
Regarding a trailing period ( exampleofdomain.com. ) If you use one at the end the domain will not resolve with a browser error, so I can't see why anyone would do that and make the site not work? A common error is lots of people put dot at the end as part of an email sentence and as a result the link fails.
The 'missing' slash is not a problem in any way. It makes absolutely zero difference in it resolving. Having the trailing slash after the domain name ( exampleofadomainname.com/ ) is not at all bogus and is not an error as the last post said. In fact, G has suggested typing in the trailing slash when submitting your url. It's best to have it listed both ways in the SE.
Also, the difference between www and not using the www is not bogus in any way. Again, it's best if you are indexed in the SE's both ways, and your url resolves both ways via the server setup.
Have no idea what you two are talking about.
See the 302 redirect threads under Google News.
Regarding a trailing period ( exampleofdomain.com. ) If you use one at the end the domain will not resolve with a browser error, so I can't see why anyone would do that and make the site not work? A common error is lots of people put dot at the end as part of an email sentence and as a result the link fails.
Yes, the link fails. However, Hijackers are apprently starting to do this. they add a link to a competitor site but malform it so (even though it doesn't work) the Search Engines pick it up and it gets attributed to that domain with a different url, just like the www.domain vs no-www.domain problem.
I'm seeing strange URLs appearing in the Allinurl: command, like www,domain.com (notice the comma instead of a period) and http:/www.domain.com (only one slash) and http.www.domain.com (no slashes), etc. There are endless possibilities. The search engine found it on the net somewhere and attribues it to that domain and soon the domain will be split in two or more parts because of that bogus url and others and duplicate content attributed to it.
This could turn into monumental problem (similar to 302 redirects) if we don't find a solution now. From what I understand you have to enter this code into .htaccess before it happens or it can take months for these bogus urls (duplicate content) to dissappear from the index.
At any rate, if a mis-typed domain does not resolve to your server, there is nothing you can do on the server to fix it. Nor should you need to.
If you're getting mis-typed filenames and such, the link above leads to a partial solution.
Jim
Regarding a trailing period ( exampleofdomain.com. ) If you use one at the end the domain will not resolve with a browser error, so I can't see why anyone would do that and make the site not work?
I also recommend the o'reilly 'cricket' book on DNS/Bind: [oreilly.com ] and the DNSRD [dns.net ].
...a trailing dot is valid DNS (technically, it's *more* correct than not using it)
How can that be when www.exampleofdomain.com. with the trailing dot will always fail with a browser error message UNLESS you have a valid htaccess redirect running. If you do then the htaccess will use the trailing dot as a 404 problem and then redirect but without htaccess it will fail. Try is yourself and you will see (as I just did), making sure the site does not have htaccess running (many do not).
Not always so. Some domains will resolve, others will not.
Frankly, I wouldn't worry too much about the domain name variations that don't resolve. For example, www,example.com is not at all the same domain as www.example.com, and no search engine should confuse them
I hope that is nothing to worry about but I'm beginning to see these bogus urls in the allinurl:www.domain.com command on google and if the domain.com without the www causes a problem with "split domains" then it seems to me all other variations will cause a problem also.
PS. I'm not a programmer and I barely know how to read .htaccess so this is why I'm asking.
