Website Hosting Guides - Multiple Domains / 301 Redirect

Multiple Domains and 301 Redirect

• Hosting multiple domains and 301 Redirect
• Why do you need multiple domains?
• Why do you need to Redirect multiple domains?
• How to Redirect multiple domains
• How 301 Redirect works
• Redirect or Rewrite?
• Code 301:
• Error 404 - File Not Found
• A quick overview of 301 Redirect
• Perform Header Check - Check your Work

 

Multiple Domains and 301 Redirect

To understand what Multiple Domains and 301 Redirect is all about, it is essential to know what Redirection is all about. Redirection is the process by which traffic is sent from the destined location to another. This Redirection can occur across a distributed network or from one server to another. The 301 Redirection procedure is effective when you want the normal traffic to flow after moving a site to a new domain.

Why do you need Multiple Domains?

It is a good practice to have alternate versions of the primary domain name. There are various reasons for doing so. Most of the time it is done to bring type-in traffic. Suppose you are looking for Sofas. If you type in the address bar of the web browser “keywords.com”, i.e., Sofas.com or Sofa.com, you become a type-in-traffic. Since this trend is popular, people buy Multiple Domains with all the combinations of the keyword(s). Multiple Domains also help for branding your site. It is also useful if you want to switch sites from .coms to .nets.

Why do you need to Redirect Multiple Domains?

Multiple Domains having the same content is one of the primary reasons for using 301 Redirect procedure.  Multiple Domains may pose problems for the users since it narrows their scope of search and provides them with the same content. The search engines are quite sensitive to duplicate content and can ban your site if duplicate content is found on your site. Google Guidelines specifically state not to create multiple pages, domains or subdomains with duplicate content. The guidelines also specify to avoid “doorway” pages (pages created for search engines), and the “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs that contain very little original content. To avoid penalization, you need to redirect the multiple domains into one main domain. It also helps you to avoid split page rank. 

How to Redirect Multiple Domains

There are a number of websites that make use of Meta Refresh Redirects, JavaScript or framed pages pulling in the original site. They may be effectual from the users point of view, but not from the standpoint of search engines. When it comes to search engine friendly methods, the 301 Redirect is the most effective method for redirecting a webpage.

The 301 Redirect is easy to implement; it also preserves the search engine rankings. It is the best option if you have to move pages around and change file names. In this case, the search engines will index just the new URL and transfer the link popularity from the old URL to the new one. This prevents search engine ranks from being affected.

There are two basic ways of Redirecting – the 302 Redirects it for a temporary basis while the 301 Redirects permanently. It is advisable to avoid 302 Redirect since it is the wrong kind of Redirect command that can cause complicated problems. Some of the site owners witnessed their sites being penalized or banned in Google for redirection problems. Take for example, the popular site www.business.com. This has more than 600000 web pages in the root index. This site not only got banned in Google due to wrong kind of redirect method, but their Page Rank also fell from 8 to 0. This is because they were redirecting business.com to www.business.com using 302 Redirect - 'HTTP/1.1·302·Object·Moved'.

When a redirection process is on, the server where it is working will respond either a ‘302 Moved Temporarily’ or ‘301 Moved Permanently’. Since the search engines are extremely sensitive, they sometimes make critical decisions on the basis of what the server tells them (through server’s headers). This is the crucial stage as it can either break or make your search rankings.

How 301 Redirect Works

The 301 Redirection is usually carried out in the root directory of the web server. For 301 Redirect, different servers with different platforms require various methods of implementation. On an Apache server, you need to modify the .htaccess or apache config file and use the Redirect directive or mod_rewrite. If it is an IIS server, you need to configure the properties of IIS Web services or you can even modify it through programs.

To make dynamic URLs indexable, you need to rewrite the URLs with query strings so as to make it appear as static URLs. On IIS server, you need to use an ISAPI filter product like the Qweksoft IISRewrite, and on Apache you need to use mod_rewrite.

There are two right ways of properly setting up a 301 Permanent Redirect. If you are using a UNIX or Linux type server, you can make use of the features of .htaccess files. The .htaccess is a text file which is checked by the web server when page or item requests are made by a browser or the spider. They add the Redirect to your server’s root command. It is a complex process and if done improperly, it may result your site to fail totally, making it unreachable to the users. The simplest way of doing so is in the DNS (Domain Name Server) zone of the domain name. If the site is hosted on an IIS or Windows server, then the 301 Redirect is done either through the Domain Name Server zone or in the section of the administrator of the server software.

Redirect or Rewrite?

You may be wondering as to which one of the two options is best for your site. You can rewrite when you need to make an html to dynamic or for user bookmarks and rewriting the content of the page. But you redirect when you change the URL and also when you change the index page to a deeper level, or when you change pages within a domain name.

Code 301:

The code ‘301’ is taken to mean as “Moved Permanently”. Once the code is placed, you need to note the URL of the renamed or missing page. This should be followed by the file name or the current location. The “301 directive” can redirect not just individual files, but the whole site. The 301 is definitely the safest way to redirect files and also preserve rankings. When the next spidering occurs, the search engine robot obeys the rule that you indicated in .htaccess file.  It is not that the search engine spiders actually read .htaccess files, but it identifies the response given by the server as valid.

“Error 404 – File not found” 

The search engines index your site as well as the Page Ranks. But once you move or rename the files, you may risk loosing loads of traffic. This will leave the visitors of your site with the message: “Error 404 – File not found”. To avoid this you can create a Custom Error Page. But even this solution has some integral problems. Your Page Ranking will be lost, as the file will appear as non-existent during the next search engine update. It can also be pretty frustrating for the viewers, as they may feel reluctant to dig through your site in order to find relevant information. A 301 Redirect is both a spider and visitor friendly strategy for serving this purpose.

                               

 

A Quick Overview of 301 Redirect:

You use the Redirect method when you have to rename a page, move a page, move a domain or have multiple domains that point to similar site content. You can easily do so with the help of JavaScript, Meta Refresh, 302: Temporary Redirect, or 301 Permanent Redirect. The problem with the former three is that they are not search engine friendly and can result your site being banned. The effective method is 301 Redirect, which is not only search engine friendly, but also preserves the Page Rank of the site. You can use 301 to redirect the domain that is no longer in use to a resourceful page.

301 Redirect is the most friendly and efficient solution. It is the best way to take your visitors to the new page. Moreover, as far as the search engines are concerned, they are the only acceptable way to Redirect URLs.

With 301 Redirect you need not worry about the pages that you are moving, as the search engine rankings are not altered. The link popularity is transferred to the new URL from the old one. The 301 Redirect also removes the problem of having to worry about violating search engine rules by creating Multiple Domain names with same content. Thus, you can now have various domain names so as to prevent your competitors from getting on to it and at the same time promote the brand name of your company. With its ease of implementation and benefit of retaining not only the regular traffic but also the Page Rank, 301 Redirect has made creation of new domains really easy.

Check Your Work

After setting up a 301 Redirect, it is highly recommended that you perform a server header check on the domains that you configured to be sure that they return the correct 301 response. Check both with and without the www. Check, double-check and triple-check after completing the configuration of 301 Redirect.