Are you halving your inbound link credit without realizing it?
Believe it or not these are two different URLs. But on this site you will find that the second BlogWranglers URL redirects to the first one.
Cannonicalization is the process used by search engines to select one URL usually for a page when you don’t do it for them.
In fact, the second URL listed above has a sub-domain (www). Rather than letting the search engines decide which is the best URL, it is far smarter to redirect one to the other yourself.
An added benefit is that when another web site links to your site the links all point to one URL ultimately, no matter whether they link using the www or not.
Now, many of our HubSpot migration clients have a blog on HubSpot while their main web site is not on HubSpot.
Because the blog and web site are not hosted on the same server the simplest domain structure is to place the blog in a sub-domain, rather than the preferred sub folder.
HubSpot blogs may use “info” or “blog” for this sub-domain, as in http://info.website.com or http://blog.website.com.
This all means there are even more URLs to keep track of and redirect properly.
For example with a sub-domain in use there are now four possible URLs instead two;
- http://BlogWranglers.com
- http://www.BlogWranglers.com
- http://info.BlogWranglers.com
- http://www.info.BlogWranglers.com
And, if there is a secure site in use, this can multiple the number of possible URLs (https://BlogWranglers.com)
Typically, the authoritative DNS is controlled at the domain name registration account or at the primary hosting account.
It is at these accounts that the A-Records or CNAME records need to be setup in order for the redirects to work properly. The account where the blog is hosted is typically not authoritative and so even if redirects are setup at the blog host they will not work until they are also set up at the authoritative domain server.
Here is what needs to happen;
First make sure that your primary domain URL has the proper redirects setup.
I like to use the shorter URL and redirect the WWW to the non-WWW.
Once this is setup, then setup the redirects for the sub-domains, both WWW and for the sub-domain. This will involve configurations at both hosting accounts.
A simple way to test how the URLs are resolving is to open a command prompt and use the Ping command. If you get a “not found” error or you get a reply from both WWW and non-WWW then you have some redirects to setup.
From a command line or terminal session use the command “dig www.BlogWranglers.com” to see the canonical name or CNAME
Completing these redirects will offer a better user experience and certainly is a smart move from a search optimization point of view.
Whether moving from HubSpot or not have you seen sites with missing redirects? What tools do you use to find and solve this issue? Let us all know in the comments.