IP address URLs being indexed, 301 to domain?

[KT684]

I apoligize if this question as been asked before, I couldnt' find in the Q&A though.

I noticed Google has been indexing our IP address for some pages (ie: 123.123.123.123/page.html instead of domain.com/page.html). I suspect this is possibly due to a few straggler relative links instead of absolute, or possibly something else I'm not thinking of.

My less-evasive solution a few months back was to ensure canonical tags were on all pages, and then replaced any relative links w/ absolutes.  This does not seem to be fixing the problem though, as recently as today new pages were scooped up with the IP address.

My next thought is to 301 redirect any IP address URL to the domain, but I was afraid that may be too drastic and that the canonical should be sufficient (which it doesn't seem to be). Has anyone dealt with this issue?  Do you think the 301 would be a safe move, any other suggestions?

thanks.

[mtipolyexe]

KT I think you are telling us that you have a static domain. As in your domain is the only domain on that IP address  here is an example of what I'm talking about http://www.whatismyip.com/faq/difference-between-static-ip-address-and-dynamic-ip-address.asp  if that is what you meant "by some sites (who do things well) 301 on the IP, others don't so I wasn't sure if I was missing something"

I would say the only chance of any site doing well in the search engine world is if it is a static domain obviously gone over that still there are very many security reasons to have a DHCP over static IP if somebody decides to attack your site for whatever reason you are a sitting duck with a static IP at least a DHCP can change it and the way all the search engines are set up now a virtual IP domain name or DHCP is treated just as if it were a static IP to Google there is no difference the DNS  domain name service has to take those numbers and turn them into a readable user friendly word we can remember I think you're confused about the difference between an IP and a domain regardless of what you do your site will suffer greatly if you do not do a 301 redirect or some sort of mapping as I suggested and please understand that is a guess I don't know that a robot.txt would be sufficient I would strongly suggest because you're putting so much time and effort into making a website that you want to rank well on the search engine's using a 301 redirect whether or not use static IP or domain on a DHCP  here is some more info as well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_redirection

I wish you the best with this please do inform me of any way that you have of knowing you will not be victim to the same issues everyone else's when it comes to duplicate the links duplicated content. I do know Google bots don't just stop when they see no follow they go on and they indexed everything then they decide what they wanted for you to rank well. I think it would be more than confusing when you type  site:example.com  and  site: www.example.com into Google only to find you spent time building links for one of your two websites.

Regardless I wish you the best on your endeavor,

Thomas

[mtipolyexe]

• Hi Ryan,

  Unfortunately English is not my first language I am a German (I live in the states as well but primarily English is not my strong point) I am telling you this because when I had written that reply I used voice recognition system and unfortunately have not been able to find the data I will reinvestigate where I was saying so that it makes more sense. I do know this 301 redirects to slow things down and I am saying this without expert knowledge so please take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. My understanding is the reason you need a 301 redirect is to eliminate the double content issue Google will from what I understand punish you for trying to use your same old content more than once especially if it is in a setting that is absolutely identical. I have been told blogs are held to different standards. The main problem I can definitely understand is most people I believe don't think www. is a subdomain when in fact it is much like three days www.example.com and blog.example.com are very much alike in fact one could make the argument if it wasn't for what the W. stands for World Wide Web and people just getting used to typing them in me might be better off as almost every hosting platform/webmaster platform or tools allows you to redirect your personal preference. For instance http://twitter.com has no www.and that makes sense for them they are trying to use the least amount of keys and is a web app. Where someone like Acme huge corporation would never dream of not having the address be written with www.acme-huge-corporation.com because the average web user believes website start with four things www. and unless you're using a CMS or CDN (that essentially does what the 301 redirect does) you will create duplicate content and be penalized when you build links because some will go to the non-WW W. and others to the root by making them more in the same all year SEO efforts go towards the same thing and don't forget by duplicating pages Google will most likely punish you. I do have a theory about how to get around using a 301 redirect and still keep the speed you deserve and not be punished for the things I spoke about earlier.I would like this to be confirmed before any of you spend your time trying what I'm guessing might work in the situation. You would design your robot.txt file to only include URLs ending with / so when you run your sightmap.xml or sightmap.aspx believe it or not they both use XML overall ASP just hangs out on server-side. You will see that there are two of every page like http://www.ColdFusionisstillmyfavorite.com/ Then under it or above you should see http://www.ColdFusionisstillmyfavorite.com the way I theorize you can make this work is tell the robots.txt to no follow the links without / it is my opinion they will follow them anyway but relay to Google that the information you're site map I wanted to take allowing for Google to hopefully not include your duplicate content and all is right in the world. 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  Respectfully,

  Thomas

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[RyanKent]

mtipolyexe, your reply seems very thought out and helpful, but I can't tell for sure as something went wrong when you added it and it breaks the horizontal frame of a normal Q&A reply. Can you please fix your response so we can all read it?

[mtipolyexe]

I feel like a lot of people are told 301 redirects are a must. There is a downside most of it involves slowing your page response time. I do believe firmly though at this time we must use 301 redirects or risk putting all of our work into what could amount to only one half before we did as it is split between the two pages created when we make a domain. The other huge problem without 301 redirects is Google will bring down the hammer so to say for duplicate content. You can have a good amount of duplicate content special in a blog but exact is going to hurt you. I dealt with this same issue I strongly strongly suggest making up for the speed difference with two Links I’m adding that have different ways that should be applied to everyone’s site elements one be and compensate http://code.google.com/speed/articles/  next is an excellent tool to tell you what you can improve  under site http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/  this is were my personal favorites as people around the world don’t always have the same Internet connection speeds I can tell you with absolute certainty the money is just as green from a person who uses dial up as it is for a person using fiber http://www.webpagetest.org/

my most valuable thing I can probably gift to you is this link http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/15_tools_to_help_speed_up_your_website.php

they are nothing short of true wealth of information  on how to handle 301 redirects and the speed difference I have for sites and currently use CDN's include Akamai, Limelight Networks  their goals our as fast as you can there are others listed in the readwriteWeb.com above and

now if you are thinking God Tom you just told me a lot of stuff that could be very expensive and a lot of work and you would be right. So if you want the totally turnkey option please been introduced Google's new system http://code.google.com/speed/pss/index.html FYI Google uses http://tools.pingdom.com/ so should you it's free media Temple is an excellent host that offers a free CDN in addition to a proceed in for $25 a month. I use http://www.firehost.com and they come with a free CDN that is excellent it handles video overall worst-case scenario you have a poorly written website is and effect and might need it to be completely rewritten with. I think that readwriteweb.com is your best bet. Sorry I was so long-winded I really hope this is viable information to somebody hopefully you and best of luck to you.

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[edited by KeriMorgret so it won't scroll horizontally]

[sferrino]

I typically use this in an .htaccess file:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^[0-9]+(.[0-9]+){3} [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.yourdomain.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Explanation: If it is an ip, doesn't start with www, or doesn't have the www, rewrite it to the http://www.

[KT684]

Thanks Ryan, not too concerned about the process of performing a 301, just looking more for agreement on if it's the best practice in this scenario.  Some sites (who do things well) 301 on the IP, others don't so I wasn't sure if I was missing something.

thanks again.

[RyanKent]

A 301 is definitely preferable over a canonical. I would recommend a simple regex expression to 301 redirect any IP related traffic to the relative page on your chosen domain.

Example: 123.123.123.123/welcome would be redirected to mysite.com/welcome

This can be achieved with a single rule. The code for the rule would vary based on your server setup. If you are on managed hosting, your host can set this up for you.