Root domain or sub domain? WWW. or NOT WWW......
-
I am a little confused! I use vidahost whom I have to say I find very helpful. I currently have the domains www.fentonit.co.uk and www.fentonit.com, now the websites was set up using the www.fentonit.com and I have www.fentonit.co.uk as a parked domain pointed to the www.fentonit.com.
Confused yet?
Now because I wanted the website to show www.fentonit.co.uk I added some code I was given by the guys to the .hta access file and viola up it comes as the .co.uk which is what I wanted.
So if your still here and havent A: Killed yourself yet or B: Went to the Pub
Then my questions are:
1. Is there going to be an issue from an SEO point of view having my site set up this way and if so how do I resolve it?
2. Would I be better using the root domain fentonit.co.uk (I think this is the root domain, although it iscurrently parked and pointed) as opposed to the sub www domain?.......and finally.......?
3. If it is set up as I stated what exactly would be my root domain, would it be the .co.uk or the .com?
Sorry and I completely understand if your not interested in answering it but if you do.....Thanks in advance and I'll take you to the pub...lol
Craig
www.fentonit.co.uk ( i think)
-
Yeah, i learned a lot today but it was a long day...lol. Big thanks to both you and Marcus.
The final thing I have to do is add the canonical link rel's and its of to the next problem.....
regards,
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
I have think you have got it set correctly I checked http://www.fentonit.co.uk/and both http://www.fentonit.com as well as each domain with or without the www. point to http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ outstanding job and your full website. I wish you luck with your company and let me know if I can be of assistance to you in the future.
Sincerely,
Thomas Zickell
Blueprint Marketing
-
I'm back:
Ok I promise this is the end of it:
Would I be correct in saying that I need to set up a 301 redirect for: http://www.fentonit.com, http://fentonit.com & http://fentonit.co.uk to be perfectly correct and will it be suffice to do this a page level or do I need to do this on every page on every url if I am letting Google know my preferred Domain?
and as the famous Inspector Columbus said....oh just one more thing .............Do I need to do this for an index page also.....?
I may have cracked it, when I run a checker this is what I received back for all the URL's:
`Results of the GSiteCrawler Server-Test
Tested at 6/26/2012 4:25:32 PM / from 217.43.237.128:URL=http://fentonit.co.uk
Result code: 301 (MovedPermanently / Moved Permanently)
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:25:31 GMT
Server: Apache
Location: http://www.fentonit.co.uk/
Content-Length: 234
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
New location: http://www.fentonit.co.uk/URL=http://www.fentonit.co.uk/
Result code: 200 (OK / OK)
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:25:31 GMT
Server: Apache
P3P: CP="NOI ADM DEV PSAi COM NAV OUR OTRo STP IND DEM"
Cache-Control: no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
Set-Cookie: 98defe8f962c0d1d3296da4a786cbd86=14a6986d7361cee18eca06c3dda7101d; path=/
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8`What do you think!?
My Eternal Gratitude,
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
I would use only one site to be honest. I realize there may be a small benefit but you would essentially have to juggle the duplicate content issue I understand if you want a blank page or if somebody goes to that URL to redirect their traffic to your main site. I have found personally using DYN to be very effective and a fantastic company you can use their webhop service for very little money take a look this would do it. http://dyn.com/dns/webhop/ or if you're current DNS registrar allows for it which it should. Maybe set up the Cname I would do something similar to what shown here
http://www.active-domain.com/help/help-web-forwarding.htm
I know there are a lot of forwarding services out there that will not interfere with the current 301 redirect you have on your main site. here is how Webhop would work with your current registrar http://dyn.com/support/webhops-and-redirections/#secondary
Hope this helps man,
Thomas
-
Hi Thomas,
Just when I thought I was out of the woods.....lol. It would appear that when I try to redirect www.fentonit.com to www.fentonit.co.uk it gives me this error:
"You cannot redirect to http://www.fentonit.co.uk. It would cause a redirection loop because /home/fentonit/public_html/ is at the same place as /home/fentonit/public_html/."
The reason I want to use the .co.uk as the main as I heat that there is a small benefit in using .co.uk for UK based sites.
What do you think?
Kind Regards,
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
I would definitely use a 301 redirect from the name you least like. So if you're root server is going to be www.fentonit.com I would set up www.fentonit.co.uk to redirect to www.fentonit.com along with having the home page canonical read
this will be different for every page so if it is "about us" you will put in the entire URL is seen in this
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
my honest opinion the easiest thing you can do to save yourself a lot of hassle stick with one domain. I know it seems hard but over the long run optimizing 2 domains is a nightmare in comparison to just having one. I would use just the .com I hope this answers your question and is of help man. We have all been there at one time. Nice site by the way.
Sincerely,
Thomas von Zickell
-
Thats brill Marcus,
Thanks a lot for your help, it took me a little to grasp this one. I can it seem use the Cpanel to set redirects without having to implement the code and then as a fail safe I'll Specify preferred domain directly with Google to Keep em Happy!!
Hopefull no more questions for a couple of hours, ....lol
Cheers for your support.!!
-
Hey, yeah, that is exactly the case, you just have the same website running on four URL's so it is technically a duplicate.
You need to implement the 301 redirects ideally but you can also specify a preferred domain in Webmaster Tools.
Details here:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=44231
Do that for now and then set the 301 for users when your guy can get online.
Shout if I can help.
Marcus
-
Hi Marcus & Thanks for the response! Now Im almost getting it but one problem is that I am not responsible for all the techy coding my developer is and he's in Spain - lucky him...........but you probably back from the pub by now and heres where I am at! (Full 12" Ext Remix Version)
It would appear that my domain in use is www.fentonit.co.uk which points to www.fentonit.com as a permament redirect with or without (www) which is fine,
however when I use a tool to check these 4 Url's:
http://www.fentonit.co.uk/
http://www.fentonit.com/
http://fentonit.co.uk
http://fentonit.com, it would appear to inform me that they are all identical as per below:
Which is as I thought and as they should be!!
| http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ | Home |
| http://www.fentonit.com/ | Home |
| http://fentonit.co.uk | Home |
| http://fentonit.com | Home |Meta Description Tag http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://www.fentonit.com/ Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://fentonit.co.uk Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://fentonit.com Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick So I then also checked to see what server response codes I was receiving and this is what was fed back:
I used all four URL's and they all came back with a 200 Server Response Code:
for www.fentonit.co.uk, this is what I recieved so I am thinking that I should have this is my primary domain and 301 redirects for the other 3?? Or do i just need to do it for the www.fentonit.com/ ?
| Server Response Code: 200 |
| Additional Headers: |
| Date | Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:16:43 GMT |
| Server | Apache |
| P3P | CP="NOI ADM DEV PSAi COM NAV OUR OTRo STP IND DEM" |
| Cache-Control | no-cache |
| Pragma | no-cache |
| Set-Cookie | 98defe8f962c0d1d3296da4a786cbd86=41f8de16b817ff27fedd2f45964f5f42; path=/ |
| Transfer-Encoding | chunked |
| Content-Type | text/html; charset=utf-8 |Does this make it any clearer? - sorry and thanks again.
Kind Regards,
Craig
-
Hi Thomas and many thanks for taking the time in responding. Yes duplicate content was one of my concerns, as would be canonical issues; Now it would appear that my domain in use is www.fentonit.co.uk which points to www.fentonit.com as a permament redirect with or without (www) which is fine,
however when I use the tool above with these 4 Url's:
http://www.fentonit.co.uk/
http://www.fentonit.com/
http://fentonit.co.uk
http://fentonit.com, it would appear to inform me that they are all identical as per below:
| http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ | Home |
| http://www.fentonit.com/ | Home |
| http://fentonit.co.uk | Home |
| http://fentonit.com | Home |Meta Description Tag http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://www.fentonit.com/ Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://fentonit.co.uk Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick http://fentonit.com Fenton IT Website. Created by Craig Robertson and Martin Dick So I then also checked to see what server response codes I was receiving and this is what was fed back:
I used all four URL's and they all came back with a 200 Server Response Code:
for www.fentonit.co.uk, this is what I recieved so I am thinking that I should have this is my primary domain and 301 redirects for the other 3?? Or do i just need to do it for the www.fentonit.com/ ?
| Server Response Code: 200 |
| Additional Headers: |
| Date | Tue, 26 Jun 2012 13:16:43 GMT |
| Server | Apache |
| P3P | CP="NOI ADM DEV PSAi COM NAV OUR OTRo STP IND DEM" |
| Cache-Control | no-cache |
| Pragma | no-cache |
| Set-Cookie | 98defe8f962c0d1d3296da4a786cbd86=41f8de16b817ff27fedd2f45964f5f42; path=/ |
| Transfer-Encoding | chunked |
| Content-Type | text/html; charset=utf-8 |Does this make it any clearer? - sorry and thanks again.
Kind Regards,
Craig
-
Hi Craig,
It looks to me like you may be producing duplicate content in Google eyes put both of your URLs into this tool http://tools.seobook.com/general/website-comparison/
you'll get duplicate content. The thing I'm worried about the most are interested and I should say is where are you pointing your if you have a favorite http://www.fentonit.com/ or http://www.fentonit.co.uk
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=139394
I would take the one you prefer make it your canonical URL then redirect without a cloak with your other domain to your site. If it were me to be completely honest ( trust me I do understand the .com is a great domain to have however been in the UK you want the .co.uk) if it were me I would stick with the .com easier make it my canonical then you won't have any trouble ranking as you have a nice site that I would not risk staying in Google sandbox any longer than needed.
I would personally include the WWW. in my final domain I know it does not matter to Google however when people are linking to you they're more likely to type in WWW. so I personally would stick with it that way and the 301 redirect you can have someone type in whatever they want WWW. or Not it all goes to the same place. I hope I was of some help to you.
Respectfully,
Thomas Von Zickell
Blueprint Marketing
-
Hey Craig
You have four possible URLs here:
fentonit.co.uk
www.fentonit.co.uk
fentonit.com
www.fentonit.comYou want to sort this out like how you have suggested and then check the http response codes to ensure that you are getting all variations redirected to www.fentonit.co.uk. If you are using htaccess something like this should do the job (server setups vary sometimes)
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^fentonit.co.uk [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.fentonit.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^fentonit.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.fentonit.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.fentonit.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.fentonit.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301]
You may also have an index page that you need to take care of
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.php\ HTTP/ RewriteRule ^index.php$ http://www.fentonit.co.uk/ [R=301,L]
Also, it makes sense that all your internal links point to the www.fentonit.co.uk root and if you are a real perfectionist that any external links use the same root as well.
I'm off to the pub
Marcus
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
-
Domain Name redirection to new Domain Name - VS - Transfering Domaine Name from account 1 to account 2
Hi there! Thanks for your time 😉 I have a new cutsomer that bought his domain name via WIX and your know... WIX sucks huge time for SEO. Basically, we want to do SEO outside of WIX. But I am not sure HOW I should proceed. I think I have 2 options: OPTION 1- We transfer the domain name from WIX to a new hoster. But we will lose 7 days during that, lose prospects while the website is in maintenance and we might lose the little bit of ranking we have on the way. BUT! ONCE Everything is done with the transfer, we will be able to operate our SEO campaing with a Domain Name that as 15 domain authority, links, little bit a ranking, etc. OPTION 2- I just buy a new domain name. I build the new Website on it and then use the SEO juice from the old domain name with redirect to push the new domain name. Like this, I won't lose any opportunities. BUT I will have to restart the SEO as new... Any tips or ideas for me? Maybe there is an OPTION 3 that I don't know about.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gab-SEO1 -
Is it possible to direct HTTP www 301 to HTTPS non www?
I have a question that has been stumping me and if someone could help I would gladly buy your coffee for a month. I have a website that used to be www and http a year or two ago. Now it is https and non www. A lot of my older links point to the www and http version of my site. This results in two 301 redirects. I.e. A link on another site to my site points to http://www.mysite.com The network waterfall shows: http://www.mysite.com 301 -> http://mysite.com http://mysite.com 301 -> https://mysite.com https://mysite.com (finally) **2 part question. ** **--Do you think that this two 301 redirect hop would affect SEO performance? I can see it did affect page authority through Moz. ** --Is there away around this? I.e. to redirect http:// AND http://www directly to https:// with no hops in between. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Stodzy0 -
Translated Content on Country Domains
Hi, We have blogs set up in each of our markets, for example http://blog.telefleurs.fr, http://blog.euroflorist.nl and http://blog.euroflorist.be/nl. Each blog is localized correctly so FR has fr-FR, NL has nl-NL and BE has nl-BE and fr-BE. All our content is created or translated by our Content Managers. The question is - is it safe for us to use a piece of content on Telefleurs.fr and the French translated Euroflorist.be/fr, or Dutch content on Euroflorist.nl and Euroflorist.be/nl? We want to avoid canonicalising as neither site will take preference. Is there a solution I've missed until now? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoeuroflorist
Sam0 -
I have an authority site with 90K visits per month. Now I have to change from non www to www. Will incur in any SEO issues while doing that? Could you please advice me on the best steps to follow to do this? Thank you very much!
Because I want to increase site speed, Siteground (my hosting) suggested I use Cloudflare Plus which needs my site to have www in order to work. I'm also using a cloud hosting. Im a bit scared of doing this, and thus decided to come to the community. I used MOZ for over 6 months now and love the tool. Please help me make the best possible decisions and what steps to follow. It would be much appreciated. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andrew_IT0 -
Practical steps to increase Domain Authority
Having read the Neil Patel's guide to DA, I am still at a loss as to practical steps, I can do to help improve my Domain Authority. This is a summary of findings / action plan so far: 1. Building quality incoming links by producing excellent content that people will love! 2. Having "related articles" to keep users on site for longer, and provide more information I am certain I am missing some more steps? More worryingly my DA has gone down from 8 to 5! I do not know how to improve it? Please help with real practical steps that I can use.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | propertysaviour0 -
Piggybacking on a domains authority - Unsure on whether to move a sub brand or not
Hey guys, We are a higher ed website and we have a conference centre that would like to have separate brand identity to the college. They have the local keyword friendly domain confrencecentre.ie redirecting to their conference centre landing page on the higher ed site. We are considering going back to the conferencecentre.ie and redirecting the higher ed landing page to this domain. My main concerns are if we do this are we taking a risk with loosing are rankings? Currently we are ranked very highly for many keywords related to conference centre and most of our traffic is from organic. I'm afraid of recommending this move for this reason as I feel the conference centre is piggybacking of the authority of the our higher ed website. I'd love to here your thoughts? Thanks Rob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Griffith0 -
Redirect ot new domain
Hello, Can someone give me advice on this specific situation: For now we have a website www.website.com/ Because of some specific business situation we want to move to .ca version but also we want to keep website.com - for U.S customers. Here's how I imagined to do this: 301 Redirect from www.website.com to website.ca. Because at this time website.com redirects to www.website.com I would remove the redirect and just keep it like website.com (so this will be new domain). Is this is the right solution? Regards, Nenad
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Uniline0 -
Domain with a Virus History
Hi, I have a domain that I am working on that has a past we did not know about. Doing a bit of research it appears that back in 2010 the domain had a link to a virus or had a virus on the domain – because of this certain anti virus sites are blocking the domain. Interestingly Google, Norton, Firefox say the domain is fine.... IE, Kaspersky and a few still block it. I am going through and manually searching and trying to get them to agree the site is safe BUT I am having a problem with mywot.com. They refuse to take down the “reviews” staying its a virus site. Anything I can do? Any suggestions? Any legal action we can take? Is there anything else I can do or should be doing to check else where? Thanks in advance Fresh Fire One
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0