Google Not Obeying Domain Re-Direct

[HuskyPup]

12 year old domain and from day 1 exampleexample.com has been redirected to example-example.com

Last night I found when searching Google for example example that Google displayed exampleexample.com

Yahoo, Bing, DDG, Yandex, Grobe, Zap Meta and even Blekko all have it correct.

The www has never been used.

Now what have they done or am I missing something?

[tedster]

I assume you checked the "usual suspects" - for instance, that the http status of the redirect is actually 301 in the server header? And that it redirects through one hop only? Are there any backlinks to exampleexample.com? Does all internal linking point to example-examplle.com?

[HuskyPup]

The re-direct has always been at my registrars from day one, it's never been on any server of mine, never, ever had a website on it ever. Actually that was my first check to see if someone, heavens knows who, had maybe removed it.

There are no backlinks showing whatsoever and it is the one and only url shown under the site command.

All internal linking points to example-example.com

I feel absolutely sure this has only happened in the past few days.

[netmeg]

If you have Firefox, install the HTTP Live Headers plugin, set it running, and then go to exampleexample.com to make sure it's still a 301. Maybe your registrar made a change and didn't tell you?

[HuskyPup]

Thanks netmeg, nice little tool that, its showing everything correctly as pointing to example-example.com except

HTTP/1.1 302 Found

This re-directs to example-example.com and the same all the way down the report.

After 12 years as a 302 surely that wouldn't do this would it? A 301 is not available in their user panel.

Interestingly, from their stats, there would appear to have been 402 re-directs in February alone with an average of 255.9 per month for the past 12 months.

I'm not sure what to make of all of this and especially so when clicking on the Google listing it goes to the correct url?

I'm going to check with the registrar why it's not a 301.

[g1smd]

Yes, the 302 Temporary Redirect is the source of your problems.

Point all the domains at one server and on that server set up two lines of mod_rewrite code to redirect any non-canonical hostname request to the correct hostname.

[tedster]

Many registrars have trouble in this area of redirects for some reason, even some of the very biggest. They invariably seem to choose a 302 instead of a 301. And because 302 means "temporary" Google tends to index the original URL rather than the redirect target - but they will use the target's Title and Description.

Finding a way out of this tangle can be important for SEO - even if it means changing to a new and savvier registrar. I had one client who had over 1300 domain names in their portfolio - many for the purpose of trademark protection. Until we found a registrar who who use a 301 and not a 302, they had a mess happening in Google.

Microsoft deserves a lot of responsibility for this chaos. Their IIS server makes 302 easy and 301 very complex - and in addition, their interface doesn't even mention the http status numbers you are choosing with various configurations! Microsoft certification even taught these redirects in a backwards fashion for many years - so a lot of people who consider themselves to be technically astute with servers also have it wrong.

[DeeCee]

This is one reason I would never use registrar based redirect.
Much cleaner to redirect the not-used domain to my own hosting and control the redirect with for example a .htaccess entry that redirects to the correct domain with a 301. That puts me in control, and free from any potential future registrar changes in implementation.

[netmeg]

Some of them offer it as an option, and I've never known one, once set correctly, to change. But yah, it's always best to keep your own control over it, if you're able.