Which one should I be using 301 redirects

[Lukescotty]

Hiya guys,

I have a little problem, not sure which one I should be using, for 301, be easy on me I've not dealt with this before.

So we have http://www.talknightlife.co.uk

and I've done redirects for http://talknightlife.co.uk to http://www.talknightlife.co.uk

host http://www.talknightlife.sheffieldspeedcameras.co.uk to http://www.talknightlife.co.uk

Because my website is purely a forum and in the canonical error from the optimisation tool is showing 301 canonical = http://www.talknightlife.co.uk/forum.php  should I be redirecting that to http://www.talknightlife.co.uk or the other way round, or just leave it ? I'm a little confused

Cheers in advanced for your help guys

[firstjames]

You have two options here:

1/ Leave it:  You must have rel="canonical" href=" http://www.talknightlife.co.uk" >> it's ok

2/Redirect 301 redirect  http://www.talknightlife.co.uk/forum.php  to  http://www.talknightlife.co.uk if you can't do it, redirect  301 http://www.talknightlife.co.uk to http://www.talknightlife.co.uk/forum.php

(2) better then (1) - My opinion

Add this to your htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
# forum.php to /
*RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.forum.php\ HTTP/

** RewriteRule ^(.*)forum.php$ /$1 [R=301,L]**

It's work for me !

[Lukescotty]

thats my solution too, but when I do the 301 direct on the /forum.php it doesn't work,

then again I'm confused, should i be doing the 301 on my domain host provider? my server provider? or via Vbseo on Vbulletin

any more answers would be much appreciated guys

Cheers Luke

[danatanseo]

I understand your confusion. Here's how I would look at it. It seems clear you want your main authority home page to be : http://www.talknightlife.co.uk

Make your canonical  on all pages in question point to that URL:  http://www.talknightlife.co.uk

Then, 301 redirect  http://www.talknightlife.co.uk/forum.php  to  http://www.talknightlife.co.uk

I'm not a technical SEO guru so I am interested to know if anyone else has different advice. But this seem to make common sense to me.