Google Domain Issues

Redirects and Domain Answering

[flexsez]

I have a rather bizarre problem. I have a couple of domains
that are all goofed up in the google serps. Let me explain:

Domain_1 - I used to run this domain earlier this year and it got indexed by google.

Domain_2 - My new Domain that has been getting hammered by the Googlebot for the past month.

If someone were to try to query (sp?) either of my domains i.e. typing the domain directly into address bar both domains were tied together.

I have removed all content from domain_1 and made a redirect to domain_2. Each domain now answers seperately.

The weird thing is when I check the serp results in the update google is listing my pages from domain_2 but with the domain_1 name?

Example search result: domain_1/domain_2 page name.

I should probably add that I submitted domain_2 to google about 2 1/2 weeks ago.

Any thoughts on what could be going on? Should I remove the redirect from domain_1 to domain_2 and let google keep crawling?

[xbase234]

It does sound like a bizarre problem.

Were both of these domains separate sites, containing unique information, and you are now pointing domain_1 at domain_2?

What types of SERP results are you getting - words and phrases common to both sites?

Do you have any of the domain_1 addresses hardlinked within domain_2?

[flexsez]

Basically here is what happened.

My hosting company (my brother's company) tied both domain names to one website. So if you were to type in domain_1 or domain_2, one
website would answer.

Does that make any sense?

Right now, I have two individual websites. So that when someone types
is domain_1, website_1 answers the request. When someone types in
domain_2, website_2 answers the request.

There are no hard links between the two sites.

Domain_1 has redirect to domain_2. So if you type in domain_1
you are automatically redirected to domain_2.

I know this is kind of a messed up deal, I don't want to anger the googlebot.

The thing of it is, I already had some decent links to domain_1
and I didn't want to lose the traffic and just toss the domain.

[flexsez]

any more input would be great...

this could become a big problem for me.

[Marcia]

What kind of redirect is it? When you say it's pointed/redirected, are you using a Javascript redirect or meta refresh tag? Or using .htaccess for a 301 or 302 redirect, which is done server side? It's not possible to say without knowing what you're using.

[flexsez]

It's a server side redirect

[korkus2000]

Is it an alias or basically pointing to the site and not redirecting? Can you type in www.redirectdomain.com/anypage.htm and have it resolve or when you type in redirectdomain.com does it become domain.com in the address bar?

[flexsez]

When I type in redirectdomain.com it becomes domain.com in
the address bar.

[korkus2000]

In the control panel at the top (link next to site search) there is a "server headers" tool on the left nav at the bottom under the calendar in plug ins. what does it tell you about your redirectdomain.com.

[flexsez]

Here is what comes up using that tool.

HTTP/1.1 302 Object Moved
Location: [mydomain.com...]
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 150

I typed in redirectdomain.com and got the results above.

[chopsticks]

According to Google the 302 redirect you are using will work in the short term to redirect, and eventually google should remove the old page/domain from their index.

But you might want to think about using ROBOTS.TXT exclusions to control what the googlebot (and any other spider) can see....

because what could get you banned in google is par for the course in Inktomi it would seem!

Methinks it best to stay away from getting "too tricky" with the technical stuff. What I mean is that it sure would be easy enough to dynamically include your files based on the requesting user agent and IP address.

but that'd be cloaking/stealthing.. and that's a bad thing unless you have a mighty good reason! (and a note from your mother)

But ROBOTS.TXT exclusions are allowed.

(Google doesn't like it if you exclude Javascript [.js] or Cascading Style Sheets [.css] since you can effectively do creative cloaking/stealthing if you put your mind to it... such as dynamically serving/cloaking/stealthing the ROBOTS.TXT file as well!)

One last thing. From what I read from a Google interview you won't have any problems sharing an IP if it is a TRUE VIRTUAL DOMAIN. i.e. get the right configuration and you'll be fine.

'cause what'd happen if someone typed in the IP address of your site rather than a domain name?