[RESOLVED] Redirect VBForums.com -> www.VBForums.com

[Kasracer]

I'm curious as to why this isn't currently done but you should redirect VBForums.com to www.VBForums.com otherwise you effectively split your search engine presence in half.

For example, you may have 20 web sites linking to http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=500913 and 30 websites linking to http://vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=500913

To search engines, those are two seperate pages and are treated as such. Now if you combine them, you'll slowly weed out all the non-www versions and have only the www versions. So, theoretically, instead of two pages sharing the amount of linked sites, they're combined into one thus making their ranking higher.

[RobDog888]

Yes, that is what I do as do other members with their sites they host or develop. A simple htaccess file can redirect the www domain to the non www so things like login issues across domains when clicking different domain links could be solved.

I say we drop the www part as its just too much to type anyways

[Kasracer]

Yup, though I think the offical domain should be www.VBForums.com. While www is a subdomain, it is common practice to use it on all websites.

I'm curious as to why this wasn't done before and if it's going to be changed in the future. I would imagine VBForums has lost quite a bit of page rankings that it never should have lost. Maybe this can help bring some members here?

[RobDog888]

Not sure but maybe JPnyc can chime in on this one. IDK but I think the non-www is more used at least on this site.

[si_the_geek]

I know you use the non-www version, but it seems to me that most people don't. I have noticed that when people post a full URL (as opposed to a Thread link, which auto-maps to whichever you are using), they usually include the www.

That is the way I would expect it to be, partly because in general people think that it is standard format for URLs (due to the prevalent use of it), and partly because the major search engines (which is where most people find the site) default to using it.

[RobDog888]

Dont matter which we use, only that if we do use just one, how will we update all posted links and stuff? Seems like it would cause issues for a while stil until all the current threads and posts are archived?

[si_the_geek]

The existing URLs would still work.. for whichever became the 'unused' version you would just set up a simple re-direct to the equivalent URL (just adding/subtracting the www), along with a header of "permanently moved" to alert the search engines/browsers to update their links.

I have done this a few times, and it has worked seamlessly. However, there may be a bit more complexity setting it up here due to the forums software or other issues.

[RobDog888]

Well I was more thinking of the login issues across domains as the issue.

[si_the_geek]

I don't see that as a big deal - as there would simply be a one-off time that the user would need to log in again (assuming they were using the other URL before).

I know some people would find it annoying, but it would only take a few seconds of their time.

[penagate]

We actually have at least six domains.
http://vbforums.com/ (I tend to use this one)
http://vb-forum.com/
http://vb-forums.com/
http://www.vbforums.com/
http://www.vb-forum.com/
http://www.vb-forums.com/

To search engines, those are two seperate pages and are treated as such.

If that was true our search engine ranking would be horrible, and we'd show up at least six times on a search for 'VBForums'.

[Kasracer]

We actually have at least six domains.
http://vbforums.com/ (I tend to use this one)
http://vb-forum.com/
http://vb-forums.com/
http://www.vbforums.com/
http://www.vb-forum.com/
http://www.vb-forums.com/

Wow. I would forward them all to one, main domain.

If that was true our search engine ranking would be horrible, and we'd show up at least six times on a search for 'VBForums'.

It is true and I bet you do. The less used domains will probably show up near the end of the 1.6 million results you get when searching for VBForums. If you combine them all, slowly over time, you'll get a better ranking than if you leave them like this. Not all of those domain names would show up in the beginning of your search because the main thing that drives page ranking is links from other websites to yours and I'm sure more people link to vbforums.com than most of those other URLs.

Search engine crawlers may do a URL normalization which may help with the www.vbforums.com and vbforums.com addresses but they wouldn't help with the other domains since they're a bit different.

It's also a usability issue. Why should I have to login 6 different times to view the same page if I happen to follow those 6 different types of links? They all go to the same place...

One last thing I want to mention is I don't know how you monitor your traffic, but typically an analytics application will use the log files from your web server and most of the times the results are split across the multiple domain names. Do the analytic application VBForums use handle the multiple domains so it can appropriately track visitors and add other statistics together or are they all seperate? If the latter, than domain forwarding will make those statistics easier to read.

[visualAd]

I agree - while these alternate names may produce some duplicates in the cache.The effect of marrying them altogether will produce a better overall page rank.

Look at: www.gooogle.com

However, it will make using alternate accounts harder

[mendhak]

VBForums is pretty low on search engine rankings. I hardly ever find a vbforums link when searching on some keywords on google, despite the fact that the question may already exist here.

It should be easy enough, just an .htaccess change, innit. That does send a 301 Redirect, does it not?

[brad jones]

Our developers are looking into this. I was told they looked at this in the past and were aware of it.

Brad!

[mendhak]

Hmm, that means they'll be consulting vbforums for help.

#Anything coming to vbforums.com/*.* should go to www.vbforums.com/*.*
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^vbforums\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.vbforums.com/$1 [R=301,L]

I think that should be right...

[penagate]

You realise that people will get offended if they are redirected to www.vbforums.com, and other people will get offended if they are redirected to vbforums.com.

Hell, there are probably already some people that are offended they're not being redirected anywhere.

[Kasracer]

Our developers are looking into this. I was told they looked at this in the past and were aware of it.

Awesome. Is this something that will be implemented? Hopefully it'll drive more users to the website over time

[brad jones]

Awesome. Is this something that will be implemented? Hopefully it'll drive more users to the website over time

It is totally up to our tech/system guys on whether this happens.

[RobDog888]

Looks like its already been implemented to redirect to the "www" domain.

[Kasracer]

Looks like its already been implemented to redirect to the "www" domain.

I just noticed that. Great!

[mendhak]

I suppose vBulletin may be working on a way to put keywords into URLs?

For example this thread could be

http://www.vbforums.com/redirect-vbf...com-500923.php

Or something to that effect.

Does anyone know if they're doing this?

[RobDog888]

Only the admins with access to the php files can tell us, Brad/Joe?

[visualAd]

Don't forget vb-forums.com and www.vb-forums.com.

[penagate]

I suppose vBulletin may be working on a way to put keywords into URLs?

There are third party products that do that. I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble, to be honest.

[brad jones]

There are third party products that do that. I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble, to be honest.

Our tech guys are pretty sharp. If something is worth the trouble, they have probably already done it. We are a relatively big company with 160+ sites, so they guys generally know what they are doing when it comes to setting up sites and domains....

Brad!

[Kasracer]

There are third party products that do that. I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble, to be honest.

Well it's a highly recommended technique from many SEO websites. The company I used to work for recommended this as one of the first items to change (after redirection, of course).

I think it's worth it as search engines can use keywords within urls (Google does this).

[penagate]

Yes... but there comes a point when you have to question the amount of work you're doing just to cater for search engines. After all, they're supposed to improve their indexing algorithms, not us.


Anyway, this is not going to happen here without a third party add-on such as vBSEO.

[Kasracer]

Yes... but there comes a point when you have to question the amount of work you're doing just to cater for search engines. After all, they're supposed to improve their indexing algorithms, not us.

I understand. I would assume VBForums would just throw on a plugin if they wanted to do this to limit the development.

[brad jones]

Search engines do drive a lot of traffic to sites and Jupitermedia has a lot of sites including VBForums. As such, Jupitermedia has people who address SEO.

Brad!