https// redirects to another site

ethical, legal redirect?

[grayhair]

I just discovered that typing in [mysite.com...] redirects one of my sites which does not have SSL yet, to an unrelated website (hosted by my ISP). Oddly, though, if you click on their link to their home page it sends you back to the current home page of my site.

My ISP is saying:

"As the URL you provided is invalid there is nothing wrong with being incorrectly redirected.

The site you are accessing does “not” have an SSL certificate and therefore the URL: [mysite.com...] is invalid."

"You are on the same server and they are the closest IP with an SSL certificate. If you have a valid certificate the issue the url would be valid and no problem would be displayed."

Sounds wrong and possibly damaging to SEO. Is this a common practice?

[kalos]

Are you able to edit your server configuration (assuming it is Apache) and just use a redirect for https:// to go to [example.com...] or something?

I'd also check the TOS with whomever you are using for hosting as this seems slightly odd behaviour from anyone that does serious hosting.

-ben

[wkitty42]

this also sounds similar to the crap that the toplevel DNS servers were doing a while back and what numerous hosting companies have been doing for a while... in those cases, the redirects were to hosting ad pages or to lists of similar related sites or some such...

i'd be checking that TOS and other service documents to confirm...

[grayhair]

It is a Windows 2003 server. I plan on getting a shared SSL soon so the problem should go away.

The site it redirects to is an .org and although it does have products for sale it also has content and is targeted to a hobby so it's not as bad as it could be.

Still doesn't seem right to me though, guess I'll have to get that SSL sooner than needed.