redirected domain appears before main domain

[tonynoriega]

searching for one of my "keywords" i have come across something...

that one of my domain names, that redirects to my actual domain comes up in the results before my main domain...

would i have somehow damaged my main site in Google, now my redirected site is showing up instead?

I do not use any blackhat or spam techniques.....

thanks

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:41 pm (utc) on Oct. 15, 2007]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]

[bytb]

How does it redirect? What method is used to redirect?

[Robert Charlton]

tony - It sounds like your "redirects" may not be correctly done, and that you've inadvertently created dupe content which is now ranking above you.

My guess is that the redirects are what are identified as "302 redirects," rather than the "301 permanent redirects" that you should have to prevent the situation.

Let me ask you this... If you enter one of your redirected domains into your browser's address window and click on Go, when you're taken to your site, do you see the redirected domain in the window... or does the address change and become your main domain?

I'm going to venture a guess that you're still seeing your redirected domain. If this is the case, then you could have the same content indexed on several different domains. If someone links to one of the redirected domains, it could outrank your main domain.

Depending on your server setup, your problem may or may not be a relatively simple fix... but it does require some technical know-how to do.

It's not seen as spam, but it is a problem to be fixed.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:54 pm (utc) on Oct. 15, 2007]

[tonynoriega]

yep, the redirected domain is still there...

i thought my server automatically redirected those in the cPanel for my "parked domains" that i have...

went into the "manage domains" and didnt have any 301's set up...

changed all parked domains to a 301, did a redirect check from some site, and it returned 301..

thanks....should have caught then when my site didnt appear...

Now, how will this affect google?

One other thing i noticed is that in my Google webmaster tools, it says that google has not crawled my site since like July 28...

should i be concerned?

[tedster]

The best information about when googlebot crawls your urls comes from your own server logs. Webmaster Tools is OK, but often contains reporting errors as well. If your server logs say that googlebot hasn't come around for 3 months, that would definitely be a troubling sign.

However, you have just made a core change to your parked domains. That should be enough to sort things out, but it may take a while - so give Google some time here. It's one of those "small" details that really isn;t small at all.

[tonynoriega]

You are correct, my server log says October 16th.

Had me at pucker factor 10 for a minute....

Ok, so they are crawling site...great.

i did just do a search for one of my keyphrases....

and i do appear...

im ashamed to be on page 3, but im there...

hey, this site has only been up since April of this year, so im on the right track..

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 4:56 am (utc) on Oct. 17, 2007]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]