Different TLDs going to one - again

first time for everything

[mifi601]

Now I know this has been covered. Still cannot mkae sense of all the posts I have read;

bought the .com and the .at TLD and would like to host everything on the .com (is that a mistake, since the nuts and bolts end of the business is in Austria?) since I already have started my link campaign and have a dmoz link pointing to the .com .., but I digress

what is THE best way (main concern SE) to have traffic going to the same place, no matter whether they type in .at or .com

AND

is it NOT beneficial (outright harmful) to advertise both?

[mifi601]

forgot to mention that I have used a header(location=new URI) in the past and am happy with the results, but that was never for a whole domain, just for pages I had to move .. and that was probably wrong ...

[jdMorgan]

> is it NOT beneficial (outright harmful) to advertise both?

Why would you want to split your Google PageRank and link popularity across multiple domains, and risk the so-called "duplicate-content" penalty? (In most cases except the most egregious, I see this not as a penalty, but rather as a direct result of splitting your PageRank/linkpop across multiple domains).

Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the rest say, "One site, one domain," and they expend a considerable amout of energy in post-crawl back-end URL-processing to try to filter out all the duplication. Personally, I suggest you take the "one domain" approach and 301-redirect all 'extra' domains and all possible subdomains to one single canonical domain.

www.example.at --- canonical 
example.at ------- 301 --> www.example.at 
www.example.com -- 301 --> www.example.at 
example.com ------ 301 --> www.example.at 
xyz.example.at --- 301 --> www.example.at 
xyz.example.com -- 301 --> www.example.at 

I picked www.example.at as the canonical. You can pick whichever domain you prefer as the canonical -- just stick with it absolutely. Since you've already got an ODP listing for .com, don't change it unless your site's focus is primarily "local" to Austria. If you sell and/or service primarily Austrian visitors, then 301 to the .at TLD, and ask DMOZ to update your URL listing.

There are many threads posted here on "non-www to www redirect [google.com]" with code examples that apply to this situation.

The best approach to take with search engines is "Don't confuse them or make them do any extra work." Sometimes, the routines they use to 'figure things out' (like the domain canonicalization function) get bugs in them, and all sites that depend on that function then suffer until the bug is fixed. So, run a tight ship, and avoid all these problems - "Neatness counts."

Jim

[mifi601]

Jim,

I thought I knew all that and look where I am now :(

In the beginning I was too stingy to purchase the .at.

My prospective clients will think the .at more professional and the SEs might consider it more relevant since I am providing info on a very local subject. Joe User doesn't care and for type in the .com is crucial. Most my visitors will be from the US.

Now I just played around with my WHM (I do not know what I am doing) and think I made a booboo, and created a DNS entry for the www subdomain, which I wnat to get rid of. So I actually want to reverse the examples from your link .. on top of the multiple TLD issue I want to direct the www.example to plain example.com

And in terms of ODP - won't the SEs register a 301 in case I cannot get the listing changed?

[mifi601]

In other words, I have to put the following in the .htaccess of the root of the relevant domain

(let's say I chose to stick with the .com)

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.at
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

right?

and

will this forward the www. as well? or do I need a separate line?

and inside the canonical url it would look like

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example\.com
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

or should it be a

RedirectMatch 301 ^/$ http://example.com/

you have no idea how confusing all this is if you do it only once in a blue moon ...

[jdMorgan]

Everybody will follow the 301 redirects -- But I was talking search ranking above, as well as domain redirection... A link to the canonical (correct) domain is simply better, since it doesn't rely on any search engine "fix-up" post-processing to pass PR to your site.

You can simply use a NOT construct to redirect all but the canonical domain:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} [b]!^ex[/b]ample\.com
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

You *should* define all www and non-www domains in your DNS zone file. You can't redirect them if they are not defined in DNS, and you cannot redirect them if your server doesn't recognize them.

Jim

[mifi601]

Jim thank you sooo much for your patience ;)

I thought Apache was doing the www subdomain automatically - no? In the meantime I (think I) managed to undo my forays into DNS entries ..

on a certain level this is very entertaining on another anxiety producing.

what's your hunch - which should be my canonical domain? the site is a month old so not much would be lost (got lucky with the ODP)

[jdMorgan]

If your focus is marketing, then 'brand' the site with a domain that reflects your primary market in terms of revenue.

If the site is inforamtional/non-profit, then it doesn't matter so much.

Your site will likely rank better in the US with a .com doamin, and rank better in the EU with the .at domain -- The effect varies from slight to large. Figure out who you want to market to, or in which area your ranking will be more important to get the search visibility you need against the competition in that area.

The only other concern is whether you can get that ODP link updated in a timely manner if you change it. Again, yes, the search engines will follow it even if it's redirected, but it will be better in the long run if it points straight to the canonical domain.

Jim

[mifi601]

I guess that means stay with the .com. My advertisers are probably more concerned about traffic than the tld - lol.

Jim thank you again for all your help!