301 redirect is done, but Google still index the non-www version

[cheyingtan]

Hello,

I have done the 301 redirect through IIS, redirect the non-www version to www version. 2 month passed, Google still indexed the non-www version in the search result. What should I do, help anyone? (After 1 week I did the 301 redirect, Google result changed to www version for a few days, then it bound back to non-www version)

here is the website url:

[starproperty.my...]

I am scratching my head wondering why, anybody can shed me some light? Thanks!

[wildbest]

1. non-www is redirected to www with '301 Moved Permanently' - That is OK.
2. www is then redirected with '302 Found' to /Home/Default.aspx - That is wrong!
3. just after that /Home/Default.aspx is responded with '200 OK' - That is OK

Your second redirect must be to www.example.com/Home/Default.aspx and responded with '200 OK'!

[cheyingtan]

Thanks wildbest.

But how do I set the second redirection to 200?
I am totally lost.

Thanks & regards,

[wildbest]

This is a question for 'Microsoft IIS Web Server and ASP.NET' forum, cheyingtan.

[Robert Charlton]

IMO, you shouldn't be redirecting to Home/Default.aspx at all.

You should only display the canonical, http://www.example.tld/

The use of Home/Default.aspx is going to cloud your inbound link situation considerably, as it will split your inbound link votes between correct canonical and the longer version with the home and default pages tacked on.

[tedster]

I'm not sure that 302 explains why Google would revert to the no-www version after a few days. I've been studying that and it just doesn't make sense. However, in general it is not a good idea to chain redirects, and especially not at the domain root. Is there a good reason not serve your home page directly at the domain root?

If you are going to redirect the domain root, then (per Google's John Mueller) that is the one time where a 302 is the correct choice, because it allows your domain root with no file path to show in the search results. However, you have that 302 combined with a canonical "no-www" redirect in a chain, and I don't see how else you could do it and still retain your domain root in the search results.

cheyingtan, how long has this been the situation? It looks like it might be a Google bug to me.

[wildbest]

Of course, like Robert said, if you can upload your Default.aspx file and corresponding content in the root directory (not in 'Home') would be the best approach.

[cheyingtan]

Reply to Tedster:
It has been there for around 2 months. Can a Google bug stuck for so long?

Besides that, really weird is Google still index certain pages with www version.

If u search "buy property" in www.google.com.my, u will find the www version show up in position #27, www.starproperty.my/memberlogin.aspx

[google.com.my...]

Can google index the both version at the same time?

Should I take the next step to eliminate the home/default.aspx at the back? You know this website is own by my client, it kinda hard to move them, unless i can give them a good reason.

Thanks for the help.

[tedster]

Yes, Google can index both versions at the same time - that's why the canonical redirect for "www" is a best practice. Otherwise the ranking power of a page can get split into two smaller buckets instead of being combined into one.

Can a Google bug hang around for two months? Yes, but I've never seen this particular kind before. Have you considered trying the canonical link tag?

[netmeg]

I changed a couple dozen sites to non-www - and they're correct, they return 200 for the non-www and 301 for www (I checked every one, okay?) And I set all their preferences to non-www in Google Webmaster Tools and every single one is still showing www in Google for the home page only. Other pages are all non-www, but the home pages are still listed as www. I started this a couple months ago and finished a couple weeks ago. So it's been a while, at least for the first ones.

[tedster]

Thanks, netmeg. There you have it - another account of Google taking a long time to sort this out.

[cheyingtan]

Thanks everybody for answering my question.

I am going to move the default.aspx page to the root folder, but should i rename it to "index.aspx", will it helps in seo ranking?

I am confusing on using the default.aspx and index.aspx, if i use index.aspx it is means that my domain will become http://www.starproperty.my/ and nothing at the back? or it will still be http://www.starproperty.my/index.aspx ?

Anybody can shed me some light?

[edited by: tedster at 6:55 am (utc) on Sep 6, 2010]
[edit reason] I made the example urls visible [/edit]