Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
DNS vs IIS redirection
-
I'm working on a project where a site has gone through a rebrand and is therefore also moving to a new domain name. Some pages have been merged on the new site so it's not a lift and shift job and so I'm writing up a redirect plan.
Their IT dept have asked if we want redirects done by DNS redirect or IIS redirect. Which one will allow us to have redirects on a page level and not a domain level?
I think IIS may be the right route but would love your thoughts on this please.
-
If you are not changing the IP address you don't need to change the DNS, if you change the IP address, in addition to updating the DNS records you also need to properly redirect traffic from old urls to new urls.
With IIS the best option is using url rewrite, which is very flexible but a little tricky to set up if it's the first time you do so: http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/url-rewrite-module/creating-rewrite-rules-for-the-url-rewrite-module
Url rewrite does operate at web server level, its powerful and does the job, but you may consider doing redirects at application level, depending on the technology you use, php/dotnet/aspx/mvc you have different tools. The advantage of doing it at application level is you can redirect dynamically, in other words use an algo to translate the old urls to the new ones using whatever information is stored in the application cache, database, and so on. While using IIS url rewrite you either statically redirect each old url to a the new url or you use regular expressions or wildcards to dynamically do so. In other words using url rewrite you have a little less flexibility.
-
Within IIS you use the IIS Manager. Here's a blog on page-by-page: http://www.proworks.com/blog/2010/02/11/adding-a-301-redirect-in-iis-for-individual-pages-with-non-aspx-extensions/ It's older but still applicable.
There's also software available like ISAPI_rewrite that can help with the process if you're migrating between Apache and Windows servers: http://www.helicontech.com/isapi_rewrite
The Windows doc on this: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/6b855a7a-0884-4508-ba95-079f38c77017.mspx?mfr=true
-
Thank you very much. What file would manage page by page or directory by directory redirects on an IIS server?
-
It sounds like you're talking about CNAME vs a 301 redirect.
DNS can't really "redirect", at least in the SEO sense. A CNAME DNS entry acts as a pointer to another site. Sooner or later you have to have an A record to act as the "glue" between yourdomain.com and an IP where it can be accessed. The problem is that yourdomain.com is the end result. So even if it is just a CNAME for loadbalancer.abc.some.cloud.com, it will be seen as yourdomain.com by both the browser and any robots that visit.
A 301 redirect is an actual instruction (HTTP response code) from the web server (IIS in your case) to the end browser, saying that yourdomain.com really belongs over at anotherdomain.com. At that point your browser (or crawling robot) goes to the new domain. This is considered the proper SEO way to redirect anything, as it is known that robots respect the 301 response and most SEO benefits that the previous link had will flow through the 301 to your new page.
-
Hi
If I understand them correctly....
DNS change would be the location for site x is now at this IP. (IP Location Change)
IIS change would be server y is now server x. (Hardware Location Change)
In which case an IIS change would likely be preferred as you don't have to wait for the new DNS update to propagate.
Hope that helps,
Don
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
-
Redirect to http to https - Pros and Cons
Hi, I know its best practice to redirect a website from http to https, instead of having many entry point to your website. When a website has been running for a long time on http and https, what are the SEO Pros and Cons of implementing a redirect from Http to Https?
Technical SEO | | FreddyKgapza1 -
Redirect non slash to slash
Hello SEO gurus We have an issue here ( www.xyz.com.au) is having 200 responses www.xyz.com.au and www.xyz.com.au/ ( when i ran the crawl test i found this ) We have been advised to do a 301 from non slash to slash ( as our other pages are showing up with slash ) for the consistency we decided to go with this but our devs just couldnt do it. Error is - redirect loop and this site is a wordpress one Can anyone help us with this issue? Help is much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Pack0 -
Robots.txt on http vs. https
We recently changed our domain from http to https. When a user enters any URL on http, there is an global 301 redirect to the same page on https. I cannot find instructions about what to do with robots.txt. Now that https is the canonical version, should I block the http-Version with robots.txt? Strangely, I cannot find a single ressource about this...
Technical SEO | | zeepartner0 -
Redirect URLS with 301 twice
Hello, I had asked my client to ask her web developer to move to a more simplified URL structure. There was a folder called "home" after the root which served no purpose. I asked for the URLs to be redirected using 301 to the new URLs which did not have this structure. However, the web developer didn't agree and decided to just rename the "home" folder "p". I don't know why he did this. We argued the case and he then created the URL structure we wanted. Initially he had 301 redirected the old URLS (the one with "Home") to his new version (the one with the "p"). When we asked for the more simplified URL after arguing, he just redirected all the "p" URLS to the PAGE NOT FOUND. However, remember, all the original URLs are now being redirected to the PAGE NOT FOUND as a result. The problems I see are these unless he redirects again: The new simplified URLS have to start from scratch to rank 2)We have duplicated content - two URLs with the same content Customers clicking products in the SERPs will currently find that they are being redirect to the 404 page. I understand that redirection has to occur but my questions are these: Is it ok to redirect twice with 301 - so old URL to the "p" version then to final simplified version. Will link juice be lost doing this twice? If he redirects from the original URLS to the final version missing out the "p" version, what should happen to the "p" version - they are currently indexed. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
Wordpress Redirect Plugin Vs Manual .htaccess?
Hi everyone, I need to 301 redirect my old pages to new ones but i am confused between whether to choose plugin for this or i should manually rewrite the code on .htaccess file. Please give your suggestion and if you think i should use plugin then which one?
Technical SEO | | himanshu3019890 -
Redirection plugin: wordpress vs apache module?
Hi, Any one familiar with the wordpress plugin 'redirection' Are there any SEO benefits of having the plugin write the 301 redirects into the .htaccess? The standard mode does not use .htaccess but has wordpress genertae the 301s Thanks
Technical SEO | | Justin10 -
Do search engines treat 307 redirects differently from 302 redirects?
We will need to send our users to an alternate version of our homepage for a few hours for a certain event. The SEO task at hand is to minimize the chance of the special homepage getting crawled and cached in the search engines in place of our normal homepage. (This has happened in the past so the concern is not imaginary.) Among other options, 302 and 307 redirects are being discussed. IE, redirecting www.domain.com to www.domain.com/specialpage. Having used 302s and 301s in the past, I am well aware of how search engines treat them. A 302 effectively says "Hey, Google! Please get rid of the old content on www.domain.com and replace it with the content on /specialpage!" Which is exactly what we don't want. My question is: do the search engines handle 307s any differently? I am hearing that the 307 does NOT result in the content of the second page being cached with the first URL. But I don't see that in the definition below (from w3.org). Then again, why differentiate it from the 302? 307 Temporary Redirect The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection MAY be altered on occasion, the client SHOULD continue to use the Request-URI for future requests. This response is only cacheable if indicated by a Cache-Control or Expires header field. The temporary URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s) , since many pre-HTTP/1.1 user agents do not understand the 307 status. Therefore, the note SHOULD contain the information necessary for a user to repeat the original request on the new URI. If the 307 status code is received in response to a request other than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.
Technical SEO | | CarsProduction0 -
301 Redirect vs Domain Alias
We have hundreds of domains which are either alternate spelling of our primary domain or close keyword names we didn't want our competitor to get before us. The primary domain is running on a dedicated Windows server running IIS6 and set to a static IP. Since it is a static IP and not using host headers any domain pointed to the static IP will immediately show the contents of the site, however the domain will be whatever was typed. Which could be the primary domain or an alias. Two concerns. First, is it possible that Google would penalize us for the alias domains or dilute our primary domain "juice"? Second, we need to properly track traffic from the alias domains. We could make unique content for those performing well and sell or let expire those that are sending no traffic. It's not my goal to use the alias domains to artificially pump up our primary domain. We have them for spelling errors and direct traffic. What is the best practice for handling one or both of these issues?
Technical SEO | | briankb0