What is a 301 redirect?

[dc000000]

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Q1, how can you check to see if Google sees 2 versions

Q2, how is Google given it's almost unimaginable resources not smart enough to realise they are the same site?

I've yet to see an example where they do actually think it's two sites but becuase it could technically be two sites then it's just good practice I guess.

If you can access your site with both versions then sooner or later google are going to do the same - if you have a redirect in place then they won't.

[euraffiliates]

I was given this advice today but i dont know what a 301 redirect is, can some one please tell me?

It is a special server side URL redirection to tell the User-Agent (browser or serach engine crawlers) that page has moved from this location permanently. Since the redirection occurs with sending minimum http header information to the User-Agent, it takes minimum time to get redirected.

Now the question is, why “301 redirection” is so much important to a site owner. There is a valid reason for it.

Search engines simply transfer the SEO credibility of the former URL to the redirected URL. So, if you change a page name of your old pages, it is a wiser decision to arrange for a 301 redirection for each old page URLs to a new page URL. If you do not do 301 redirect for your old pages, the search engines will treat all new pages a brand new pages and you will simply lose the associated SEO credibility of your old pages. Most of all the visitors will get “404 not found” pages when they come to the old pages from the search engines.

The best way of implementing a “301 redirection” is placing few lines of code at .htaccess file for an apache web server. The code may differ depending on the redirection requirement. You may know more at 301 Redirects and www/non-www Canonical Problems

If you are running an ASP.NET site you can manage it at the web.config file. Just edit the XML files with its syntax.

In fact you can do it writing script (PHP or ASP.NET) too.

Hope this will give a general idea on 301 redirection.

Thanks

[LotteMae]

If you're using shared hosting Fasthosts won't do anything, and you'll have to use the meta tag method which works fine.

I opted for tweaking the web.config file as below:

<system.webServer>
  <rewrite>
    <rules>
      <rule name="Redirect to WWW" stopProcessing="true">
         <match url=".*" />
         <conditions>
           <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^gazoomy.com$" />
         </conditions>
         <action type="Redirect" 
                 url="http://www.gazoomy.com/{R:0}" 
                 redirectType="Permanent" />
       </rule>
     </rules>
   </rewrite>
</system.webServer>

Worked perfectly.