How to 301 multiple domain names to a single domain

[Grenadi]

Hey,

I tried to find and answer to this seemingly simple question, but no luck.

So, I have one domain name with a website attached to it. I also registered all the other domain names that are similar to it or have different extensions - I want to redirect all the other domain names to my one main domain name without getting penalised by the big G.

It looks like this:

www.mainsite.com - this is my main domain

I also have www.mainsite.com.au, www.mainsite.org, and www.mainsite.org.au which I all want to just redirect to www.mainsite.com

I have been told that the best way to do this is a 301 redirect, but to do that you need to make a CNAME for all the other domains that points to www.mainsite.com.

My problem is that I cannot seem to create a CNAME record for http://mainsite.com - I have it working for http://www.mainsite.com but not the non www record.

What should I be doing differently? Is it just my DNS provider is useless?

Thanks,

Anthony

[KeriMorgret]

Michael, you might want to open a new question for this, as old threads don't get bumped when new content appears.

If you don't have any content or anything on the exact match domains, the 301 really isn't going to help you.

[Uramark]

Is it black-hat SEO to send bluewidget.com, redwidget.com, and greewidget.com to widgetbrands.com (send all to the same page, or same domain home0?

Since the domain name matching with keywords is important, this strategy makes sense.  It is allowed? How many domains can I 301 redirect to widgetbrands.com if I want to target all the colors of widgets?

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Anthony,

I'm going through older questions in Q&A. Were you able to sort this out, or are you still looking for answers?

[KeriMorgret]

When I've needed to do this, I've been able to go to the control panel at my registrar (godaddy, namecheap, 1and1, etc) and have those domains forwarded with a 301.

[oznappies]

If you are doing this at the the DNS level (i.e. CNAME) you actually want an A Record to point all the domain names to the one IP Address. You would then need to do a ReWrite to handle the 301 redirects. You would also need to ensure you verify all the domains in Google Webmaster Tools and set the prefered domain to www.mainsite.com (note you we need to use settings -> prefered domain in site configuration). I would also add a canonical meta tag to the head of each page.

Since you have the .au is you site Australia wide or international. If it is Australia wide you should have the .com.au as the main web address.

[A_Q]

Do you have access to .htaccess on your server?

You could set a simple redirect to redirect all traffic to your website root to the domain you want.

Try this....  http://www.affiliatebeginnersguide.com/domains/redirection.html

[Ionmoon]

Hi

A CNAME is not the best way to point a 301 redirect. ( often called poor mans redirect) To know which way to make a 301 rewrite, you first have to know if you are using an Apache server, you are working with PHP,ASP, Cold fusion or ISS.

[ReneReinholdt]

Hi there

Actualy your website host should be abel to handle this for you, if not you have a seriusly shitty surplier

What you need to have them set up is more commonly known as a "domain alias" so you set up the webhotel with the primary domain and then have them set the other domains up to be aliases to that domain.

Or you could use the geeky way out. Set up all the domains to point to the server on where your site is hosted. Have your host setup your server to accept the in coming domains. and then setup the .htaccess (on appache platform) to 301 all other (including subdomains www) to the primary domain.

But the easier way out is clearly to have your hosting company set it up for you.