Redirect and google

Is 301 redirect really works with google?

[pashenG]

Hi.

I've such situation:
www.sitename.com is a redirect (HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently) to sitename.com .
I've done it long time ago. This redirect match all requests to www.sitename.com/* .

I read that such redirect will transfer all PR from www.sitename.com to sitename.com. (I've a lot of incoming links to www.sitename.com and I don't want to lose them)

Now I look into google directory and see that www.sitename.com has its own PR (lower than sitename.com but it has).
Could someone explain me why?

Regards
pasheng

[plasma]

The directory PR isn't the same scale.
TPR is 0-10
Directory is 0-11 IIRC

HTH

[nakulgoyal]

Sorry HTH , but can u explain this a bit.

[davidpbrown]

As far as I understand..
The directory takes a while to update.
Your redirect probably has had some effect but that www.sitename.com is in the directory will probably have google remember it until that directory gets refreshed.

That sitename.com has higher directory PR than www.sitename.com maybe the effect of www.sitename.com being in the directory + a few remaining links to www.sitename.com.

Plasma's post was suggesting..
---------------
The Google directory PR isn't the same scale as the Google Toolbar PR.
Toolbar PR is 0-10
Google Directory is 0-11 If I Remember Correctly

Hope That Helps!
---------------

I don't know if the open directory=DMOZ==Google directory..
maybe look to update any entries you have in dmoz.org and correct them from www.sitename.com to sitename.com.

Links to www.sitename.com may have some effect but I would expect Google wouldn't continue listing www. once it sees it removed from the directory.. if the directory is still used by then..

Of course as plasma suggests you need to take care which PR's you compare. They?may only compare if both www.sitename.com and sitename.com are in the same category.

HTH

MX+HNY

[SlyOldDog]

I wrote to Google asking about this a while ago. They told me to write to everyone linking to my old site and ask them to link to the new site.

Not very encouraging!

[pashenG]

--------------
That sitename.com has higher directory PR than www.sitename.com maybe the effect of www.sitename.com being in the directory + a few remaining links to www.sitename.com.
--------------
I'm sure google has enough time to discover that all links to old pages are redirected. (I'm sure redirect was done before Dominic)
So it seems that even if I do 301 redirect links still ranks old pages.

--------------
Of course as plasma suggests you need to take care which PR's you compare. They?may only compare if both www.sitename.com and sitename.com are in the same category.
--------------

I don't want compare this values. It's rather interesting for me that old page (in directory) still has PR.

[webdude]

I am confused about this...

I wrote to Google asking about this a while ago. They told me to write to everyone linking to my old site and ask them to link to the new site.
Not very encouraging!

I am having much the same problem. I have a pr of 5 for mysite.com and a pr of 3 for www.mysite.com. I have been trying to locate all the links that point to my site using the www.mysite.com and trying to get them to change it to mysite.com.

So does the 301 redirect work or not?

I am running iis on a Windows 2000 server and I suppose I could set up a new site www.mysite.com and redirect it to mysite.com, but is this the best way to do this? If it is, does this mean I have to burn an IP and set up my DNS for this?

Anyway, I am still confused as to whethter this is worth ir or not.

Any comments or suggestions would be welcome as to how others have set this up.

[claus]

>> 301 redirect really works with google?

Yes. It takes anywhere from a few days to a month (plus) to get the domain changed in the SERPS, but eventually you will have only one of them listed.

>> I look into google directory

Google directory is not the same as the Google SERPS. It's built on the dmoz directory. Probably your address is listed with www in the dmoz - they should update this, but perhaps the editor of your category haven't checked for long, or perhaps the current listings of the dmoz haven't migrated to the Google directory yet.

>> as to how others have set this up

Domains are normally (in my world at least) configured via DNS. the www subdomain is an "alias" to the "right domain" which is the one without www. Hence, both types of requests end up at the same site at the same web server (unless it's configured otherwise at the server or website level, of course). So "normally" you would get both kinds of requests in at the same place. They would both hit the same index page. For most web sites out there, the hosting company takes care of this - it's not something you should have to touch yourself.

In your case, you probably need a ISAPI filter (in IIS) that redirects requests from www to the domain. Possibly you can even set this up in your control panel.

Although i run Apache and not IIS, i'm certain that you will not need an extra IP or extra website to do this. The two domains should point at the same IP and the same website.

/claus

[webdude]

Okay, I do my own hosting. I also handle my own DNS. This is what I did. I have a Class C subnet with enough IPs to be able to spare one. I pointed mysite.com to one ip ( this is the main site) then I pointed www.mysite.com to another IP. I then set up IIS for a new website and and did a "redirection to a URL" in the properties. It seems to work well. Anyone hitting the www.mysite.com is now redirecting to mysite.com.

Question

Is this going to be okay doing it this way? I hate screwing with the ISAPI filter (besides all redirects using ISAPI that I found on the web wanted to charge money for the filter).

I found this as an alernative method.

[hasbeen]

I pointed mysite.com to one ip ( this is the main site) then I pointed www.mysite.com to another IP. I then set up IIS for a new website and and did a "redirection to a URL" in the properties. It seems to work well. Anyone hitting the www.mysite.com is now redirecting to mysite.com.

Forgive my ignorance, but why do this and waste an IP? Why not simply create a wildcard in the zone file for www.mysite.com?

[webdude]

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you do that?

p.s. winodows dns servers

[claus]

This is just what comes to mind:

1) Set up an A record pointing

domain.tld

to an IP
2) Set up a CNAME record pointing

www.domain.tld

to

domain.tld

...i have no idea about how to set it up on windows, but perhaps this Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 168322 [support.microsoft.com] might help you.

After you've done that, both domains will display the same page. Then you will need the redirect, which is where the ISAPI filter or the control panel is used afaik.

/calus

[hasbeen]

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you do that?
p.s. winodows dns servers

[edit] I will make this a bit more thorough...sorry [/edit]

Simply add an 'A' record of type '*' and have it point to the primary 'www' IP.

In actuality, you will want to create an 'A' record called something odd, like '123'. Then, in your Windows directory (generally, C:\winnt\system32\dns), manually edit text file (it will be your-domain.dns) and change '123' to '*'. Log back into MSDNS and reload the text file.

[mvander]

No need to burn up an IP, just use a host header setting. Or am I missing something?

[nolen1]

"So does the 301 redirect work or not?"

It worked great for two of my sites but it took six weeks. I put this in my .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}!^sitename\.com
RewriteRule ^.*$ [sitename.com%{REQUEST_URI}...] [R=301,L]

When I checked link:sitename.com and link:www.sitename.com I used to get two different results. Now I get the same results for both and my pr went up to a six on both sites.

[nolen1]

There should be a space before the explanation point in my last post.

[hasbeen]

Yeah, host headers would work, but they're not necessary if you're simply trying to get www.domain.com and domain.com to resolve to the same site. The wildcard will work just fine, and save a host header for directing to a separate site using the same IP (if your IPs are in short supply).

[SlyOldDog]

Alternatively get your IT man to do it :)

I've never had a problem with this and I never will because I have an IT man.