301 Move or CNAME Alias?

Best way to move a domain

[consultant]

I have a site www.domain1.com that is moving to www.domain2.com. There's a lot of talk about using the 301 Permanent Redirect HTTP header but doesn't that require you to keep www.domain1.com up and running?

Wouldn't it be better/easier to just create a CNAME (alias) record in the domain1.com domain for www.domain1.com and point it to www.domain2.com and then be able to shut down the www.domain1.com website and just be done with it?

[jdMorgan]

Yes, but this orphans the original domain name, and you can lose many of your old incoming links.

If you point your old domain's DNS to the new domain, you can detect requests for the old domain name, and then use a 301-redirect <added> on the new server </added> to the new domain name. This preserves the value of your old incoming links.

HTH,
Jim
<edit> added clarification </edit>

[consultant]

I'm pretty sure that the domain would only be orphaned if we also deleted the DNS zone file for domain1.com and not just the website. As long as there is a CNAME record in the domain1.com zone file for www.domain1.com pointing to www.domain2.com, any links to www.domain1.com will always be redirected to www.domain2.com.

The problem with this though is that the browser (and the search spider) are unaware of the new domain and I would guess therefore the PR would not transfer.

I think I just answered my own question. Use a 301 Permanent Move to preserve PR. Then after a few months when everyone has had a chance to update their links, delete the old website and old domain name.

[pageoneresults]

CNAME (alias) = Trouble

The reason I say that is because I set up a CNAME alias a few years back. I still have a site sitting out there with a penalty because of that. My understanding is that you cannot do a 301 redirect with the CNAME, it has do be done through IIS.

Once you do set your method of redirection, the first place you should go is here and perform a Server Header Check [searchengineworld.com].

If the server does not return a 301 error or 301 permanently moved response, then it is not done correctly. You also want to make sure that the location is correct (the url you are redirecting to). The Server Header Checker will return something like this...

Server Response: http*//www.domain1.com
Status: HTTP/1.1 301 Error
Location: http*//www.domain2.com
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 157

Hey jdMorgan, am I on the right track with the CNAME and alias issue?