Forum Moderators: open
One thing is bothering me though. I have just one site operating as a .com; I have the same domain name registered as a .co.uk. Any visitors to the .co.uk site automatically are redirected to the .com site via some sort of simple redirect option made available by my web hosting company.
The .co.uk was initially registered with some minor search engines and still receives a number of visitors. Nothing major and by preference I wouldn't use it at all.
My concern is that the googlebot will see the .com and the .co.uk as two identical sites and thus render me liable for a potential penalty. If this were the case I would remove the redirect in an instant.
Am I worrying over nothing or is this a potential issue? If it is an issue any suggestions about what I could do to retain my .co.uk traffic?
I have never needed to do this myself, but this solution has been suggested in other threads for similar (potential) problems.
Kaled.
via some sort of simple redirect option made available by my web hosting company
Don't get the .co.uk removed from the index - but DO find out what kind of redirect is being used!
Check the server headers for the .co.uk... does it use a 301 redirect? If so, that's great - your PR will be tranfered. Use a safe browser (samspade.org is good) and check what source is being sent.... frames -> .com site = bad bad bad, meta redirect = bad....
Let us know just what kind of redirect you have - then we can tell you about the implications :-)
Well I asked the question and below is the answer I received from my web host. Unfortunately I don't understand the implications of the answer :o(
"If you set up a hosting directory for one of your domains in the
Domain Names section of the portal then this will create an Apache
vhost to re point the domain to a new root directory."
