IPs and Domains
-
If a domain loads on the domain and the IP is that a problem?
So it loads on domain.com and 69.16.....com
Thanks!
-
Oh - the IP is the old server, not the IP of the current one? All of the above still applies, except it just got a lot easier!
Redirect all traffic on the old server to the new one (301 redirect). Failing that just turn off the old one.
-
Thanks Mat! Do you think I should disallow the IP address from the old server. The one that this site was switched from?
Thanks again.
-
Sitemap.xml is useful, but it won't help with this issue I am afraid. To solve the problem of the wrong version of the site being indexed you need to instruct search engines that they are looking at the wrong version. It might sound logical to give them a list of the right URLs, but that is not enough. They don't follow the logic of "... and ignore the rest".
There are 2 main ways to go about this. I personally prefer the first, but either is a win. Unfortunately both method will probably require the help of your developer.
Option 1 - 301 Redirects
A rule is added to the server that says "if a user requests a url of http://69.16.xx.xx/pagename.html send them instead to http://www.example.com/pagename.html . Also send a 301 code - and instruction that the old address has been moved permenantly.
Depending on your server set-up this is most likely done by adding some redirect rules to the .htaccess file on the server. Quick easy job for someone who knows that they are doing - literally a few minutes.
Option 2 - rel Canonical
Depending on what powers you site this might be simpler. A conditional statement is added to the code that checks that pages are being served from correct sub/domain. If they are not then a simple tag is added to the HTML output that points the search engines towards the correct address.
If you are using a CMS to power the site this might be a simple change. A few lines added to a common template. Again, quite a fast job. If you are using static pages you won't have the option to use this method.
If all of the above sounds like gibberish then you need to talk to the developer. If not,. then great!
I hope that is some help. I wouldn't panic about this. Even if the IP address versions do all get indexed it is probably not going to cause a big problem to be honest. However if you can you should get it fixed.
-
Thank you Mat. I am seeing the IP address being cache and am considering adding a sitemap to the IP address in my sitemap index xml file. Does this sound like a good idea?
-
Do you mean if the site loads by visiting domain.com and 69.16.xx.xx ?
If so it is only a problem if it starts getting indexed, which usually doesn't happen unless someone links to it. You could have a redirect in place just in case (via .htaccess or similar). Many designed to catch the www and non-www versions would catch this as well anyway.
However, unless you start seeing the ip version appearing in the results I wouldn't overly worry about this.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Moving my domain to weebly
I am thinking of moving my html website to weebly. They offer a 301 redirect for my domain name. Is that ok for SEO?
Technical SEO | | bhsiao0 -
301 redirect after penalty to domain which currently 301 to the penalised domain
Hello all, As I have mentioned in another Q&A, one of our new clients got hit by manual penalty. I checked their link profile and there was a lot of black hat involved. Long story sort, I submitted a reconsiderationr equest which was not enough as it seems 99,9% of his links are bad links. We took the decision to move a newly launched web site from www.websitename.com to www.website-name.com with the latter being an old domain name with good authority and clean link profile. The problem is that at the moment the www.website-name.com is set to 301 redirect to www.websitename.com and what we want to do now is take the web site off www.websitename.com and launch (not 301 as we dont want to pass the penalty to the clean domain) it to www.website-name.com. What is the best practise for this particular case and are there any things i should pay attention to? I would appreciate your advise!
Technical SEO | | artdivision0 -
Which domain should i set up a blog on?
I have a client who uses a .com for there website in Australia. Were now building an external blog which will be on a subdomain. We recently discovered they also own the Australian version of there domain name. Should we build there blog on: blog.currentdomain.com 2) blog.newdomain.com.au Thanks
Technical SEO | | acs1110 -
Domains and Hosting Question
I bought hosting for unlimited domains on Godaddy. It's not a dedicated server. It was just $85 a year. I have unlimited latency but a limited amount of "space." I don't know a lot about hosting servers etc... My question is relatively simple. When I go in GoDaddy to my hosting. There is a site that shows up as hosted, and all of the other sites show up under that site in it's directory. If you type the name of the site I bought the hosted package on, then type a forward slash and the name of one of the other sites on the hosting package, you will actually go to the other website. What is this relationship? Is it normal? Does that make all of my websites subdomains of the main site (that I bought the hosting package on)? I don't fully comprehend how this effects everything...
Technical SEO | | JML11790 -
Redirecting domain to the main domain (hosting cost?)
Hello Everyone, I have the following situation. There is main domain and a secondary domain that is related to the page on the main domain. I want to integrate the content of the secondary domain into the page on the main domain and redirect the secondary domain via 301 to that specific page. As i understand I can do it via .htaccess using rewrite mechanism. http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection But the question is does it mean I have to keep paying for the hosting for the secondary domain? Because htaccess has to be located on the web server so I would need a hosting plan for it? Is that true? Is there any way around it? P.S. to avoid any confusion - I am talking about hosting plan - not domain registration fees
Technical SEO | | SirMax0 -
How big an impact, if any, does distinct IP subnet have?
I have two customers that sell the same product. Their content is logically similar because they are selling nearly the same thing. The part numbers, descriptions, code base and underlying structure are different however. One customer is complaining that because I host both of these sites in the same server cluster on the same subnet I am negatively affecting their ranking. To what extent might this be true? I've always held that unless the content is identical the subnet thing was just a myth. Any opinions?
Technical SEO | | ChrisInColorado0 -
Redirecting Root domain to subdirectory by IP addresses (country specific)
We are using Wordpress Multisite. so www.mysite.com is our English website and www.mysite.com/sub is our Chinese website Can I redirect Chinese visitors who type "www.mysite.com" to "www.mysite.com/sub" ? so we want to force redirection to www.mysite.com/sub if our website is visited by Chinese IP Address. I've realized that this is called GeoIP Redirection. and our hosting company already has those database, I guess my job is just to simply insert some code in .htacess My question is, would it affect our SEO later on? and what .htacess code is the best practice here?
Technical SEO | | joony20080 -
Redirecting Parked Domain
I just recently switched hosting. We have 3 domains and 1 being the main domain. Right now they are set up as parked domains. Can I redirect the parked domains under my main websites .htaccess file ? I am just worried that good we will get hit for duplicate content, even though technically the content is only on our main domain. right now if I type in my parked domains in Google, they appear in search. The site is all hand coded and not using a CMS.
Technical SEO | | hfranz0