how do I redirect properly?

by monere

Posted: 13 years ago 17 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi,

I am trying to redirect a domain name hosted with company A to a website I created with company B.

The redirection in itself is not complicated (I just logged into my cpanel at company A and chose there to redirect the domain name to the actual URL where my new website is created)

All nice and easy so far.

But the problems begin when I access the domain name again (after the redirection has been made). All of the posts (and I mean ALL of them) now have the same URL - the domain name, and all internal links return "404 page not fund" errors.

My website is on WP and I do have a redirection plugin installed and I DID redirect all of the 30 URLS of the old website to the new one. But this doesn't seem to help.

Anyone knows how to make this whole redirection beast work? It's driving me nuts already

Thanks

#404 #domain #properly #redirect #url

DIABL0

13 years ago

Originally Posted by monere

Thanks

So you have a domain that points to company A hosting and you now want it to point to company B hosting?

Why not just change the A record of your dns?

If you provide example of the links, I sure I can tell you what is wrong. But I'm going to guess that it dns.

I have no clue about cpnael. But if you redirect xyz.com to another site, then when someone clicks a link it's going to go back to the other site because that is where dns is pointed to for xyz.com. In that cpanel may be redirecting xyz.com, but not xyz.com/xxx/xxx.html. But I could be wrong since I don't know cpanel.

Thanks
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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by DIABL0

Sorry Diablo, I would love to share links with you so you can help me out of this, but unfortunately the website I am talking about is an Adsense one and you know we are not supposed to share our Adsense websites with anybody

Now, about the DNS change, I just did it 40 minutes ago and to this moment there are still no changes (it still loads the old website). The only way I can make the domain name display the new website (that's hosted with another company) is really to just point it to the website's URL.

But when I do this URL forwarding thing (with or without changing the DNS, doesn't make any difference) then all of the pages point to the root domain name (example, www.mywebsite.com) instead of pointing to their specific URLs.

Also, about what you said

"I have no clue about cpnael. But if you redirect xyz.com to another site, then when someone clicks a link it's going to go back to the other site because that is where dns is pointed to for xyz.com. In that cpanel may be redirecting xyz.com, but not xyz.com/xxx/xxx.html. But I could be wrong since I don't know cpanel"

I can say that you are wrong about this particular case. I did redirect xyz.com to another site (the URL of the site that is) and when someone clicked (I did) a link it didn't go back to the old site like you said it would, it just went to the new site

Here's an example of what my problems really are.

Let's say that my site is in the health niche, and that it has pages like this (just an example)

myhealthsite.com
myhealthsite.com/teeth
myhealthsite.com/skin
myhealthsite.com/diet

etc, etc

After I make the redirect in the cpanel by choosing to point the domain name myhealthsite.com to a URL and choose stealth (I have no idea what this is but I have 2 redirect options - standard and stealth), then, when I click on the myhealthsite.com name again it does redirect to the URL I made it point to (which is obviously the URL of the home page for the new website, that is hosted on a different company than the one where the domain name is).

So, I do this "point to an URL" thing and it does point the domain to the home page of the new site, just as it should. But when I click on a link on my website that refers to a specific page, I am being taken to that page indeed but in the address bar of the browser it continues to show the root domain name (myhealthsite.com). And this happens for any link I click on and the corresponding page I am being taken to.

Also, while on a page (other than the home page) and I refresh the browser I am being taken back to the home page.

And that's still not all

Every time I hover over a link that points to another page on my website, it shows down right in the browser the real URL of the page where the link points to, instead of showing the new redirected URL. Here's what I mean.

Say for example that my new website is created at this address:

http://myhostingaccountusername.hostingcompanyB.com/myhealthsite

Well, if I am on the page myhealthsite.com/teeth (just an example) and on this page there is a link to another page - myhealthsite.com/diet, then every time I hover the mouse over the link that points to the diet page, it will display http://myhostingaccountusername.hostingcompanyB.com/myhealthsite/diet instead of displaying myhealthsite.com/diet (like it's normal).

I hope I didn't confuse you too much, but instead made you see what I mean. I am not even sure if this is a redirection, DNS, or database problem anymore. If only I new what it was, I might be able to rectify it somehow

Oh well, I will see what your suggestions are.

Thanks

Thanks
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DIABL0

13 years ago

Originally Posted by monere

Your ISP is probably caching dns and you will have to wait till they do a new look up for the change to take effect.

When you say...

http://myhostingaccountusername.hostingcompanyB.com/myhealthsite

That is a subdomain of hostingcompanyB.com and not a TL domain. Is this what you are doing or do you have an actual domain like myhealthsite.com?

The only reason I wanted to see the links was to see what the underlying IPs are. From that I could tell what is actually going on. Since I don't know cpanel and you don't want to provide your links (which I understand), I probably can't help you.

If you have an actual TLD like myhealthsite.com and you change the A record from hosting company A IP to point to the hosting company B IP it should completely fix all problems and no redirection will be needed.

For example myhealthsite.com points to hosting company A IP 2.2.2.2 and now you host it at company B using 3.3.3.3 and you change the A record from 2.2.2.2 to 3.3.3.3 then once it propagates all traffic will go to 3.3.3.3.

Follow?

Thanks
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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by DIABL0

Uhm, yes I guess I follow you and I will try this one too. When you told me earlier about DNS I thought you referred to changing name servers, which is what I did. But I guess you were talking about something else, and now I can clearly see that you were really talking about something else

Could you please read my reply to Harrison too? Probably you will understand better what I mean after you've read it.

Also, I am not sure if it matters where exactly I install any website. It might matter but I am not sure.

For example, the TLD myhealthsite.com (which is for example purposes only) currently points to a website installed in a folder (just like every single website out there). The long, ugly URL I gave above as an example is indeed long and ugly in reality too, but it's the real path to the folder where I installed WP and set up the new site that I need my TLD domain name to point to.

So, no, it's not a subdomain of a hosting company, it's just the path to the folder where the new site resides. And yes, I do have an actual TL domain, just like myhealthsite.com.

Also, I appreciate your understanding vis-a-vis me not giving the URL of the website I am talking about. I really have no problems with giving URLs (especially when I am trying to solve a problem for myself) but Adsense is a delicate topic and they have very specific TOS as to what you are allowed to do and what you are not allowed to do

Anyways, thanks for making it clear about the DNS thingy. I really confused this with changing the name servers, but now I know what you mean and I will follow you recommendation. Just waiting for one or 2 more replies from you guys to see if something new/different shows up.

It feels nice to have someone who knows stuff like this help you out

Thanks

Thanks
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DIABL0

13 years ago

Originally Posted by monere

Thanks

Your name servers shouldn't of changed.

I assuming that you bought your domain from say godaddy.com and your using godaddy name servers for dns...you don't have your own name server running. Then regardless of where the site is hosted it would use godaddy name servers. Just the IP of where the site is hosted has changed since it switched from hosting company A to hosting company B.

I read your your post, but I have no clue because I can't see anything.

Your best option may be to contact hosting company B and tell them the problem you are having and ask how to fix.

Thanks
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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by DIABL0

Hi,

I bought the domain name from ipower.com and it, and the old website are still hosted with ipower and while ipower is great and I will continue using it, I still need to make this redirection to another hosting company for personal reasons.

Also, yes, only the IP has changed and the site in itself (since it's a totally new site, even the permalinks are a bit different now, from the old ones)

Eventually i will contact the hosting company and ask about this but now that things are clearer, would you advise for or against still changing the DNS records? Would that solve the issue anymore, or?

Thanks

Thanks
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DIABL0

13 years ago

Originally Posted by monere

Yes you want to change the dns setting. You should be able to log into your ipower account and change them.

If you have myhealthsite.com and it's hosted at IP 2.2.2.2 and then you set up a new site and it's hosted at IP 3.3.3.3 and you want all traffic that is going to myhealthsite.com to go to the new site that is at IP 3.3.3.3, then you need to change the dns A record from 2.2.2.2 to 3.3.3.3.

Thanks
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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by DIABL0

Do I change the A record or do I create another one?

Also, will this modification fix all of the issues I explained in this thread or only a part of them? Which ones?

Thanks

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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by DIABL0

Hi

Sorry for having to write again in a short period of time, but I contacted the hosting company where the new website is and they also told me to change the A record (which I did) and that I should wait 1-12 hours for the changes to propagate through the entire world (whatever that means)

But my question and at the same time, concern still remain: how can I make the permalinks display correctly? Currently, all URLs of all the posts show up in the address bar as the domain name, instead of the post specific URLs.

In other words, I type myhealthsite.com in the address bar of the browser and hit enter, it displays myhealthsite.com. But if I type the URL of any other page (for example, myhealthsite.com/page1) and hit enter, it returns a 404 error page. BUT if I click the link to the page myhealthsite.com/page1 from within my website, it goes to the "page 1" page but the URL in the address bar remains myhealthsite.com

Any idea why this is happening?

Also, I was wondering if transferring the domain name over to the new host will solve all these issues. Also, will the transfer period (which I heard it's usually between 5-21 business days) affect the rankings and the PR of my website during this transfer time?

Please share whatever you can because I can't seem to make this redirection/transfer/forwarding thing works no matter what

Thanks

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DIABL0

13 years ago

Originally Posted by monere

Thanks

Do you have a folder named page1?

If you have a dedicated IP, what happens when you go to your site using IP instead of domain name?

myhealthsite.com/page1

instead do...

x.x.x.x/page1

[ 1 ] Thanks
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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by DIABL0

Do you have a folder named page1?

If you have a dedicated IP, what happens when you go to your site using IP instead of domain name?

myhealthsite.com/page1

instead do...

x.x.x.x/page1

I FIXED it

In fact, the hosting company fixed it. The fix was made up of 2 parts

1. Remove the domain name from the first hosting company and add it to my control panel in the hosting account where the new site was created, then pointing the domain name to the folder where I installed WP and set up this particular site.

2. Change the site's URL in the database that I created when I installed WP for this site.

This second step I had a feeling that it might be the cause, I just hoped it wasn't it, because I really didn't know how to fix, nor did I know that it can be fixed.

I had the feeling that this might be the reason because I recall coming across this issue sometimes in the past, when I tested something with one of my websites. I don't remember exactly how I fixed it then or if it caused me that much of a trouble like now, but I know for sure I had encountered it.

But anyway, I am glad it's all over now, after more than a week of frustration and 90 minutes of live chatting with support. Thanks God they had the patience to check everything and they knew what to do

Also, thanks for trying to help Diablo. I really appreciate it.

Cheers!

Thanks

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HarrisonJ

13 years ago

"The redirection in itself is not complicated (I just logged into my cpanel at company A and chose there to redirect the domain name to the actual URL where my new website is created)"

Undo that.

"My website is on WP and I do have a redirection plugin installed and I DID redirect all of the 30 URLS of the old website to the new one. But this doesn't seem to help."

That's what you need to do. All of the only pages on the old domain should 301 redirect to the same pages on the new domain. So www.old-domain.com/about should go to www.new-domain.com/about etc.

Either way you do it, you are likely to lose some page rank and rankings. Search engines don't take kindly to domain name moves in my experience.

Thanks
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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by HarrisonJ

Hey Harrison,

thanks for your tips. I undid that already, because it didn't solve my problem.

Now, about the redirection. I didn't change the domain name. The domain stays the same, It's the website that changed. I saw some instruction in my "google webmasters tools" account on how to deal with changes of address (domain name that is) but that's not my issue.

My domain name will remain the same, I just want it to point to a different website that really is different, in every little aspect of it.

The old website was nothing more than a 30 page (.php) website in the health niche, that was not on WP, and that didn't even have about-us, contact, TOS, or even a home page. All it had was 30 pages of text with 2 Adsense ad units on them and that was all.

But the new site instead, it's on WP and it has 25 posts already, plus category pages, and the additional contact-us, about-us, privacy policy, sitemap, etc. pages. And I really need to keep the domain name that already has PR and some organic traffic coming to it, but to make it point to the new website.

And the problem is that I first had to create this new website on a different database, folder and hosting account than the one where the domain name is. And probably that's where my problems come from. If I had installed WP and set up this new site directly in the folder to which the domain name points (like I did for other dozens of WP installations before) I probably didn't run into this issue.

But I couldn't do this since I would have risked losing traffic and revenue while re-building the site from the ground up. It took me over a month to do it anyway (I am single guy, with very little income that needs to do everything on his own - design, programming, SEO, etc).

As you can see, if I did this the "right" way that I knew for sure it would work, it would've taken me over a month, in which time I could have risked losing the SE rankings, not to mention the traffic and more importantly the revenue, which is not much but it's what keeps me alive, so to speak.

I am not sure if this is a database issue, a DNS issue, or even a redirection issue caused by the plugin or by the misuse of the plugin. I don't totally exclude the possibility of me not using the plugin correctly, since I am not too familiar with all the options in it anyway.

I am using the "redirection" plugin which I assume is the best and most popular of them all, but even though it is pretty easy to use, I still don't know what all of those options do, and when/if I should use them. I refer here to the "match URL and referrer only" or "match URL and user agent only" and stuff. Or the "regular expression" and "regex" check boxes, which I have no clue if I should tick them or not, and what they do i I tick them

Hope I could make this even clearer than before.

Thanks again for any suggestions and I look forward to hearing even more of them, if possible (actually, I only look forward to fix this once and for all)

John

Thanks

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Istvan Horvath

13 years ago

May be I am missing something... but if you do NOT want to keep the old site - why not just install your WP (the new) site on that old domain?

In this case
- no need for redirect;
- no need for another domain;

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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath

Because I wanted to change the hosting and because I didn't plan everything ahead. I only asked myself how I will do the redirection in order not to disturb anything (traffic and revenue levels, SE rankings, and PR) only when I almost completed the new site. And the work on the new site took me over a month to do and I don't feel like doing it again. I have other dozens of sites too that I need to take care of

I know you are right but like I said, I didn't think about this beforehand and now I have to find a way to "fix" it

Thanks

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Isaiah Jackson

13 years ago

you should be able to do that by going into your hosting c panel and look for something that says redirects then you choose your domain name and then fill in where you want it to direct too

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monere

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Isaiah Jackson

you should be able to do that by going into your hosting c panel and look for something that says redirects then you choose your domain name and then fill in where you want it to direct too

It wasn't as simple as that because it was something database related, and if it's database related it's not simple. At least in what concerns me

But I fixed the issue (actually my hosting provider did) and I am Ok now.

Thanks for taking time to help. It feels nice to find people willing to help you with the most difficult things

Thanks

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how do I redirect properly?

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