9 replies to this topic

[1dmf]

Hello,

I'm currently sorting out my non-www DNS records!

I was going to set it up so the non-www is an A record and the www is a conical name(alias) of the A record.

Does G! see this as a 'redirect' so to speak or do I still need to set up two websites in IIS and do a 301 redirect from one to the other, or can I simply put the two headers in IIS for the website and everything ok.

OR will G! see that as two sites with duplicate content?

one of the reasons I never used to have non-www records is the hastle of redirecting with IIS, if I have 30 websites I have to create 60 just to redirtect the non-www record, it's a pain in the ass and messy in the IIS MMC.

I was kinda hoping that G! was a bit more cleverer than that and understood DNS when one record is simply an alias of another.

Or was that wishful thinking?

Cheers,
1DMF

[Randy]

Does G! see this as a 'redirect' so to speak

No.

do I still need to set up two websites in IIS and do a 301 redirect from one to the other

Yes. Or if you're just worried about Google you can always set up both the hostname (that's the non-www address) and the www subdomain, then create a Webmaster Central account for the domain and tell them which you prefer they use.

one of the reasons I never used to have non-www records

As I stated previously in another post, this is very bad form and is likely to lead to all sorts of problems. Technically speaking there should always be a non-www version in the DNS. That's the hostname that everything else (subdomains, SMTP, POP3, etc, etc) works off of. To not have a hostname is going to cause issues. It's expected to be there and needs to be there.

[1dmf]

Yes. Or if you're just worried about Google you can always set up both the hostname

I already have G! WMT with ALL my domains in them and all of them with www as the preferred domain, so does that already handle G! for duplicate content for host and www records?

It's a real pain having to have two websites in IIS just to redirect from one to the other, does anyone know of an easier way to do 301 redirects in IIS?

As I stated previously in another post, this is very bad form

yeah that'll teach me for listening to some idiot on a forum who posted recommendation of having no host record as default!

hmm I see a pattern forming here!!!!

[Randy]

I already have G! WMT with ALL my domains in them and all of them with www as the preferred domain, so does that already handle G! for duplicate content for host and www records?

For Google, yes this will take care of potential www/non-www duplicate content issues. Assuming you have your DNS set up properly. I'm not sure you have a typical setup though.

[1dmf]

I'm not sure you have a typical setup though.

what's a typical setup?

I now have an A record for host name with a CName record for www (well in most cases some of them I have A records for both).

and all our MX records point to our email provider service. (unless they are white labelled websites) then the registra does email forwarding for those domains.

[Randy]

That's a pretty typical setup. I've always used an A for the hostname and a cname for the www version and never had any DNS problems.

I would tell ya to check a domain over on DNSStuff.com, but I understand they've recently removed the one-time free lookup service there. Though if you have several domains you need to look into it might still be worth the subscription cost. I subscribed some time ago because I like some of their other tools that never were free. A service like DNSSTuff will give you a pretty quick heads up if there are any lingering DNS issues, and they do real time lookups so shouldn't be seeing any old data.

[chrishirst]

does anyone know of an easier way to do 301 redirects in IIS?

Yep.


http://www.highranki...mp;#entry117701

[1dmf]

hmmm Chris. I don't see how that is a redirect using IIS, it seems to be a redirect using ASP.

seings as most of my sites are either pure HTML or written in PERL with a templating system that produce HTML , how is that going to help?

or did I miss something in your post

[Randy]

IIS is just s different animal.

As a possibility you might be able to tweak the application mapping in your IIS so that .htm pages are sent through the asp processor, then use the code Chris referenced above to handle the redirects.

[1dmf]

well, i've done redirecting in IIS for my multiple domains -> one website , and used GWMT to set 'preferrred domain' for the others that only have hostname & www. sub domain headers.

i guess the simplest way would be to create an index.asp which has 301 redirect to the www.domainname.html file and set asp as the default in IIS.
How does having www. and hostname headers affect Y! & MSN ?

is only G! able to handle double header website with the preferred domain option set