Multiple doamin with same content?

[VipinLouka78]

I have multiple websites with same content such as

http://www.example.com

http://www.example.org and so on.  My primary url is http://www.infoniagara.com and I also placed a 301 on .org.

Is that enough to keep away my exampl.org site from indexing on google and other search engines?

the eaxmple.org also has lots of link to my old html pages (now removed). Should i change that links too? or will 301 redirection solve all such issues (page not found/crawl error) of my old webpages?

i would welcome good seo practices regarding maintaining multiple domains

thanks and regards

[BWIRic]

You want your redirect rules on the server, not client site. In Apache you can do this with mod_write and the .htaccess file like so.

To add the www

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

To remove the www:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

In IIS they have a rewrite command too. I've not used it myself but this should help: http://www.petermoss.com/post/How-to-redirect-non-www-domain-to-www-domain-requests-in-IIS-7.aspx

[VipinLouka78]

Anyway I am lucky being with a group of average team mates.

[RyanKent]

I would recommend either asking a new Q&A as to how an IIS redirect works, or checking Google. I lack experience working in that environment. I was spoiled by working with a very talented team who had performed all those changes and I never needed to learn any aspects of IIS.

[VipinLouka78]

Hi,

Thanks. As you said i was checking server side redirection. My site server is II7. I tried to make a server side rediretion but couldn't. I found a java script redirection and created a redirection.  See the page; http://www.infoniagara.com/d-bed-roses.html

I think this too is not a correct redirection, is it?

thanks

[RyanKent]

Glad to be of help. You are always free to reach out here at the SEOmoz Q&A. If you feel a need to reach me specifically my contact information is in my user profile.

[VipinLouka78]

Ohh thanks so much Ryan. Let me learn the server side redirection and other aspects related to it.

Thanks once again for your consideration and time. I hope I can approach you in future too.

best regards

[RyanKent]

The javascript code you shared is not a proper redirect.

A proper redirect happens on the server. Instead of loading the original target page, the server instead will load the redirect page instantly along with a header response code of 301 which tells search engines the content has moved to a new URL.

If you use javascript in the manner you shared, the original page will load with a 200 "all ok" header code, and then 3 seconds later the javascript will trigger and load the new page with a 200 header code. All the backlinks will still be applied to the original page and not the redirected page.

The exact method of performing a redirect varies based on your server setup. If you have a LAMP server with cPanel, there is a Redirect tool which you can use.

[VipinLouka78]

hi,

It's really helpful and now I understand it.

I know that you are one of the true masters of SEO and I think you can clarify one more doubt. It is also regarding the issue of redirection. I want to know that a script i use for  redirectining old pages to newpages is right or not?

This script is working properly and I want to know that what type of redirection is this and is it a proper redirection to get the backlink juice? (I add this script to the body just after the

header.)

thanks in advance

[RyanKent]

A 301 redirect is the proper solution and superior to the canonical. It is fine to have the canonical too, but add the redirect.

When you ask "should I do it for each page", understand a single redirect can forward all non-www traffic on your site to it's www equivalent. If you are unsure how to perform the redirect, simply ask your host. Most sites are on managed hosting and it is a very common and easy request.

[VipinLouka78]

hi dear Ryan,

thanks so much for your time and valuable suggestions. As you said, i am aware of this problem and therefore i added a canonical url to the homepage. should i make a 301 from non-www to www url? should i do it for each page?

thanks & regards

[RyanKent]

In short, you should not use duplicate content across various domains. Doing such will likely negatively affect rankings for either site. Try doing a search that would naturally return the results for a duplicated web page. You will likely find one page ranks well, while the other page ranks significantly lower due to the duplication.

I checked your .org site and it's pages are properly 301 redirected to the .com site. This change would cause any valid pages listed on the .org site to disappear from Google's index. It may take a month from the date the 301 was implemented for Google to crawl and update the entire site.

One point I would add is I suggest you perform a Google site:http://www.infoniagara.org search. Notice you do have a lot of search results for the .org site still present. Those pages are properly redirected to the .org site but they receive 404 errors. If the pages are really gone and there is no equivalent, that is fine and these results should disappear from Google's index over time. If there are similar pages on your site, you should 301 redirect these pages to them.

Another issue, your .com site appears in both the www and non-www form. If you take a URL, remove the "www" then the page appears normally showing the non-www URL. This is a problem which needs to be fixed as it is dividing your backlink juice. Pick one version of your URL, the www or non-www version, and 301 the other version.