Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I DID NOT mask the domains. actually the opposite, I aliased them. so you type in the redirect's address and apache sees it as *******.com
So when I type in the domain name, it shows that URL in the address bar instead of the URL it is pointed towards.
Will this be viewed as masking or duplicate content?
Please advise as we have page one on all engines and don't want to lose rankings.
You have to use a 301 redirect on both the non-www and the www versions of all of the sites, in order to redirect all of them to the single www.domain.com entry that you want to be listed.
The redirect should take any request for any page on any domain, and redirect it to the same page on the www.domain.com site that you want to be indexed. The redirect must be a 301 redirect. Use WebBug to check it.
There is no other option.
I could do a 301 redirect from each domain to my main domain, but I read something here: [mcanerin.com...] that talks about aliasing all of my extra domains to one other "catch-all" domain, and then 301 redirecting the catch-all domain to my real domain. Is this better than doing individual 301 redirects of all 15 domains to my main domain? I suppose the theory here is that it acts a a buffer from seeing a bunch of URL's being redirected as opposed to just one.
Is any of this considered spamming by Google? Or will it hurt my SERP's?
Thanks for you knowledge and help.
phochief
Point all the domain names at that one server.
On that one server, edit the .htaccess file such that if anyone arrives there asking for the "wrong" domain name, they are fed a 301 redirect along with the correct domain name to ask for.
Moments later they are back, knocking on the door, and as they are now asking for the correct domain name they are let in and the page content is served.
.
Your other plan still has duplication of URLs, and TWO redirects chained one after the other. Avoid doing that.
If this isn't correct, can you be a bit more specific?
Thanks for your help.
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You need one server, and one hosting plan.
Point all the domain names at that one server.
On that one server, edit the .htaccess file such that if anyone arrives there asking for the "wrong" domain name, they are fed a 301 redirect along with the correct domain name to ask for.
Moments later they are back, knocking on the door, and as they are now asking for the correct domain name they are let in and the page content is served.
.
Your other plan still has duplication of URLs, and TWO redirects chained one after the other. Avoid doing that.
1) Is it ok, or better, to 301 redirect several (15) domain names to my main business domain?
2) Is it ok, or better, to have one hosting account with 15 alias domains pointing at it, and then 301 that hosting account toward my main business domain on a different server?
Thanks again,
Phochief
Point all domains that you own to that ONE server.
On that ONE server, set up ONE .htaccess file that contains all of the redirect information such that all of the "wrong" domains (both www and non-www versions ) are 301 redirected to the one correct www.domain.com that you want to be indexed and listed.
The ONE .htaccess file will look something like this:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^maindomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^other.net [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.other.net [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^whatever.co.uk [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.whatever.co.uk [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.org [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.mysite.org [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^otherone.us [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.otherone.us [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mirrorsite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.mirrorsite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
That is it!
You are trying to make this more complicated than it needs to be.
Yep, I have a habit of doing that. :-)
I'm still learning.
....so, when you say one server, are you talking about the server where my extra domains are being redireted from? All of my extra domains are registered at GoDaddy and I have one host account there which I am using to 301 redirect the extra domains to my main account, which is hosted by a different server at my Yahoo store. So, I actually have two servers, and two hosts. My main domain is registered with Yahoo.
If you're saying there's a way to point all of my extra domains at my Yahoo store's server, then that's something I just don't know how to do.
On the GoDaddy virtual server (using Linux), since I can't use an .htaccess file, the only way I can do a 301 redirect is using php code :
<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: [mymaindomain.com...]
exit();
?>
Sorry for the webmaster 101 lesson.
Phochief
Does this sound right? Changing the Cname would make the domain look like it's located on the same server? Is that the same thing as "pointing"?
I'm getting a headache.
dont use cnames period. unless of course you like things to be complicated (which is what im thinking now). I dont think anyone on here would recommend you to use Cnmaes, it's just a huge mistake.
Server1 host account1
domain1
domain2
domain3
domain4
domain5
domain6
redirect to
Server2 host account 2
do you have access to .htaccess at all?
If you can redirect maindomain.com to www.maindomain.com using just one server and one hosting account then you can also redirect both someotherdomain.com and www.someotherdomain.com to www.maindomain.com on that server by hosting them all in the same physical server space, and having the redirect instructions in that same physical space too.
domain1
domain2
domain3
domain4
domain5
domain6
redirect to
Server2 host account 2
------------
No, no access to .htaccess at godaddy. The php 301 redirect seemed to work very well, and returned a code: "301" when I entered any of my extra domains into the header checking tool at [seoconsultants.com...]
So the example you are showing above seems to go along with what I was originally doing, i.e., at my domain registrar's domain control panel, setting all of my extra domains to "alias" toward a single server/hosting account there (all using the same NS) and then FTPing the index.php 301 redirect file to that first server/hosting account, which sends any of those extra domains to my other server/hosting account (my Yahoo Store) main page. Thus as you have above, Server 1 being redirected to Server 2. Right? I mean it works, I just want to make sure G* is going to be happy.
And just to make sure G* doesn't index my Server 1 host, I placed a robot.txt file in the root directory telling robots to go away:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Am I getting it yet? :-)
How am I supposed to redirect someotherdomain.net from one registrar's control panel toward my Yahoo store's server? Here's what Yahoo allows in the domain panel of my store: I can add any number of other domains that I own to point at my Yahoo server. When I added one (as a test) today, Yahoo then said I should do the following to my someotherdomain.net to make it "fully operational":
Zone File
www.someotherdomain.net IN CNAME yhst-73893876487883.site.yahoo.net.
Isn't this done by changing a Cname record in my someotherdomain.net DNS settings?
If I'm making this too complicated, can someone be more specific about what exactly I'm supposed to be doing?
Thanks guys.
