301 Redirects

Does it affect e-mail?

[w_s_o]

My customer has two different sites each with it's own domain. They want to phase out the older of the two, and just point it to the newer one. From what I read, the best way to do that from a search engine perspective is with a 301 redirect. However, there are about 30 employees with e-mailboxes associated with the older domain. They want to keep these e-mails. Will the 301 affect incoming e-mail as well as web page requests?

Since I don't have control of the server, I'm not even sure if they are running IIS or Apache or something else. I've sent them 301 instructions for both IIS and Apache, but don't know if the answer to my question depends on the software.

Thanks for your help!

Tom

[Burner]

The question actually has a lot more to do with DNS and MX records. MX records are the mail records for a domain name. You need to contact the person that manages your mail server for the new domain and have them configure the new mail server to accept mail from accounts on the old domains.

Then you can contact the person who manages your DNS server and have them change the MX records from the old domains to point to the new domain's mail server IP.

Lastly, have the users change their email addresses in their email clients to the new domain.

Leave the old mail server up for 24-48 hours after the changeover as DNS can take that long to update throughout the Internet. Check both mail servers during this period and you shouldn't lose 1 single piece of mail.

Good luck,
Burner

[w_s_o]

Thanks Burner, but I might have been a little unclear. They want the webpages for the old domain to point to the newer domain, but they want to continue using their e-mail ids under the old domain. They don't want to change e-mail ids.

The server will continue to stay up, basically to serve e-mail and to forward web page requests to the new site.

So I'm thinking (hoping) that a 301 redirect only has to do with web page requests, and that mail addressed to the old domain will still continue to work--that they can continue to use their current e-mail boxes. Does that make sense?

[Burner]

So I'm thinking (hoping) that a 301 redirect only has to do with web page requests, and that mail addressed to the old domain will still continue to work--that they can continue to use their current e-mail boxes. Does that make sense?

Ahhh, my bad... Sorry. Actually since you're moving to a new domain, I would not recommend a 301 redirect. Google in particular has an aging algo that keeps you in their "sandbox" for an average of 9-12 months. During this time, the new domain will NOT place well.

It would be far better to do a 302 redirect so your existing pages on your old domain maintain their Google placement and forward to your new domain. Then, when you can see in their index that your new domain is coming out of the "sandbox", you can go back and 301 permanently.

Either way 301 or 302 on web pages has absolutely nothing to do with email.

Burner

[w_s_o]

This is great information! The "new" domain has actually been in place for about 15 months (although I'm STILL not convinced that we're out of the Aging Delay yet).

But I was not familiar with the 302. That's excellent advice. Thanks.