Google all of a sudden shows my .net?

[ctmtb]

I have a bunch of domain names all pointing to www.example.com. For weeks my site (www.example.com) has been ranked in the top 4 in Google for my best keywords.

Now all of the sudden I look today and it's still ranked #4 but the URL is www.example.NET

This is what I have for my .htaccess and also in Google Webmaster Tools I have the preferred domain set as www.example.COM.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

[rainborick]

The Preferred Domain setting the Webmaster Tools wouldn't be affected by this. My guess is that you're probably seeing a Google glitch. Perhaps they only recently discovered the .net version and the 301 hasn't been fully absorbed yet, which could be allowing some combination of the so-called "honeymoon effect" and at least partial credit from the .com's ranking status to result in this ranking result. However, with the recent spate of .htaccess hacks, you should definitely check that your .htaccess file has not been replaced by a hacker.

[jimbeetle]

Is the dot net active? Are you redirecting the dot net to the dot come? If so, how?

[ctmtb]

This is my exact .htaccess code:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.example\.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

I was told by someone here that would redirect "everything" to my main domain www.example.com

Maybe not?

[jdMorgan]

The code is correct, but have you tested it?

Jim

[ctmtb]

Right now I still see it... example.NET is 4 position down for my keyword on Google.

If I put that in my browser it instantly redirects to www.example.com which is correct.

All the other domains I own which are "parked" to the main domain all seem to redirect correctly.

I'm just hoping I didn't do anything wrong or that the .net will hurt my rankings.

[tedster]

If I put that in my browser it instantly redirects to www.example.com which is correct.

Have you used a utility such as the LiveHTTPHeaders add-on to Firefox? That would let you see - in real time - what status codes your server is sending for the .net domain.

[StoutFiles]

Well it certainly can't help your rankings...

[ctmtb]

This is what is gives as the output:

http://example.net/

GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: example.net
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=[keywords]&btnG=Google+Search&aq=1&oq=[kws]

HTTP/1.x 301 Moved Permanently
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:48:01 GMT
Server: Apache
Location: http://www.example.com/
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=99
Connection: Keep-Alive
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

[edited by: tedster at 8:32 pm (utc) on Jan. 20, 2009]
[edit reason] switch to example.com [/edit]

[bwnbwn]

I rechecked it the site is 301 correctly.

I went and took a look at the site before it was edited due to TOS and I would suggest some work needs to be done to the site. Are you aware there are broken links in your footer and there is much more that needs to be done to get this site to convert.

How long has the 301 been in place and before it was in place was the .net site live?

[jdMorgan]

So we've established that the code is correct, and that it is working properly.

As a result, the logical conclusion is that you're seeing a googleglitch, and the only thing you can do is wait for the next update to sort this out. Might be tonight, next week, or next month.

These things happen and are almost always temporary. The only situation where this might take a long time to resolve is if CNN, Wikipedia, the BBC, and several other highest-PR sites all link to your non-canonical domain from their home pages, but most of us here would *love* to have that problem. :)

That was admittedly a bit of hyperbole, but only in the case of 'overwhelmingly powerful' incoming links to the wrong domain would I see Google taking very long to sort this out; The combination of your site-wide redirect and GWT canonical domain declaration will win in the end.

Please post back and let us know how long it took. :)

Jim

[ctmtb]

jdMorgan - Thank you I will report back.

bwnbwn - I just fixed the broken footer thank you for letting me know. I had changed some things around before and didn't catch that one (and it was the most important one too!) The 301 has been in place for a few weeks, but the site itself is only about a month old now.

As for "there is much more that needs to be done to get this site to convert." I am always open to suggestions...

[tedster]

As for "there is much more that needs to be done to get this site to convert." I am always open to suggestions...

The Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com] rules out specific site reviews in this forum. There is a Review My Site forum in the non-public area for paid supporters, but we can't go in this direction in the public forums.

[ctmtb]

I understand completely, it is listed there as well.

[ctmtb]

Today the .com shows up correctly and a lot of my other pages were all newly indexed today as well.

Looks like all is well for now!

Thanks again for all the help.