OK, first things first -- check out my slick new blog interface!
Now that this is out of the way...I have a question about resolving my domain names. It's a headscratcher. You see, I've started a job as Blogmaster for a company here in Canada, and I'm learning loads about search engine optimization. I've learned, for instance, that I've got a problem.
Each of my pages can be reached in eight(!) different ways:
angrygwn.mu.nu/xxx
www.angrygwn.mu.nu/xxx
stevejanke.com/xxx
www.stevejanke.com/xxx
stevenjanke.com/xxx
www.stevenjanke.com/xxx
stephenjanke.com/xxx
www.stephenjanke.com/xxx
From a search engine point of view, this looks like duplicate content, and it dilutes my ranking.
What I need to do, says the SEO, is use 301 redirects to a chosen domain. The 301 is a permanent redirect, and the search engines don't see that as duplicate content. So if I can have stevejanke.com be the target of the other 5 domains, I'll be sailing.
Uh, now what?
The Janke domains are on GoDaddy.com. Do I give them to you somehow so that the mu.nu domain servers respond to requests for those URLs? Do you set up the 301 redirects on the angrygwn domains? A big part of this is a mystery to me -- I think I sort of understand how this stuff works, but I'm probably missing a big part of understanding it.
Hmm.
I think you can set this up in CPanel, but I've never tried it. I'm not 100% sure that it will work to lift your search ranking, either.
I'll take a look though.
Posted by Pixy Misa at November 24, 2006 02:37 AMNot sure what the effect will be on search engine ranking either, but this guy seemed pretty sure it was a good idea to pull all these together under one name.
Posted by Steve Janke at November 24, 2006 03:46 AMI just checked and I've got stevejanke.com, stephenjanke.com, stevenjanke.com "parked". I wonder if that's the same thing.
Posted by Steve Janke at November 24, 2006 03:52 AMFrom http://forum.valueweb.com/showthread.php?t=676
If you have several domain names parked/pointed at your site it is a good idea to create permanent 301 redirect for them so for the search engines not to treat them as duplicate content, which can potentially lower your ranking.
Here is a sample .htaccess that will create a 301 redirect:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^parkeddomain.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^parkeddomain-2.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [R=301]
And even more generic solution would be:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.maindomain.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [R=301]
Even more information here, and an explanation of what all this means!
http://www.mcanerin.com/EN/articles/301-redirect.asp
Posted by Steve Janke at November 24, 2006 03:56 AMAh, good old mod_rewrite. Which we don't have installed.
Parking a domain is different; there's no redirection involved; all the names point to the exact same site.
I'll see if I can get mod_rewrite working; it's very useful, if horrible and poorly documented.
Posted by Pixy Misa at November 24, 2006 07:35 AMI appreciate it. I'm trying to use AGWN as a testbed for these advanced concepts in blog/website management. It'll be interesting to see if any of this stuff actually works the ways the SEO says it should.
Posted by Steve Janke at November 24, 2006 11:38 AM