Error Message with Protx

[Mike Hughes]

It is a bit strange which is why I thought that your host might also have some re-directs working. It might be worth checking as you should probably redirect all non www. request to www. but it could get messy if your re-write rules and theirs conflict in some way.

Mike

[pinbrook]

We are the host,and no we don't have any redirects at server level from non www to www in place.

the redirects you can do at CP level are all www

are you using the CP or your own htaccess

[TraceyHand]

well I've been through the site and have changed (I hope!) all URLs to www.

However, I can't understand why, if you type in www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog WITHOUT the trailing / it lands on a non-www version of the page??
It's the only anomoly I'm left with, I think!
At first I thought it was my htaccess redirect but that's working fine to www.

Any ideas? I hope all this messing about sorts my Protx problem after all this lol

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Tracey,

There must be another redirect going on somewhere.

You can check the server header response here http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp

strangely, the wrong redirect gives a 301 permanent reponse, whereas it looks to me as if the redirect you've put in place is using a 302 (temporarily moved) response.

All your redirects should be 301 permanent as this is better for the search engines. The fact that there are two different responses does suggest that there are two different redirect going on.

Mike

[TraceyHand]

I'm using the htaccess, Jo
I have no idea where to start to use the CP( I don't know what half the stuff is lol)

my htaccess file reads ErrorDocument 404 http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/

It's simply been added to redirect old pages that have been removed but might be still indexed in the search engines.. doesn't happen often any more though.

I can't understand what's happening to redirect anything to http://budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/ though
As far as I can see, the only URL being directed there is www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog (without the trailing /) as all other dodgy (or made up!) URLs are redirecting as a result of the htaccess

Does that make sense? I'm not sure even I understand any more!

[pinbrook]

on the CP its quite straight forward, go to redirect URL icon, next page, you type in the old url (direct from) type in the new url (direct to) redirect type is permanant direct.

The other thing I'm concerned about is why all your actinic generated links at still all non www.

eg norcascade and the links on the horizontal nav bar. This has be resolved too

is your htaccess only there for 404 errors, if so scrap it and use the CP, error pages icon, choose 404 not found and choose URL

[pinbrook]

Ok I looked on the server, yout htaccess only has one line which is the 404.

Thus forget everything we have been saying about 301 and redirects we were all talking at cross purposes.

I would remove your htaccess and let the CP do the 404 instead, we than then eliminate this.

For the record for anyone else helping in this thread there are now no 301s either in htaccess or on the CP

[TraceyHand]

on the CP its quite straight forward, go to redirect URL icon, next page, you type in the old url (direct from) type in the new url (direct to) redirect type is permanant direct.

But the dead pages are lots of miscellaneous ones... hence why I used the htaccess... as kind of a "catch all" effect. How do I do this via the CP?

The other thing I'm concerned about is why all your actinic generated links at still all non www.

They're not always. Only if trying to navigate from a non-www page.
if clicking from http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/index.html all links (Actinic and otherwise) show as www.

If clicking from http://budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/index.html they show without www

Is that normal behaviour?

[pinbrook]

But the dead pages are lots of miscellaneous ones... hence why I used the htaccess... as kind of a "catch all" effect. How do I do this via the instead of thisCP?

at present with your htaccess file you have one command, which is the 404. Effectively this says if you ever try to go to any page on my site that doesn't exsist go to go this page instead. This is your catchall scenario.

Additionally, you can use a 301 which says if you ever go to page A and its not there go to page B instead. This allows for more targetted redirects and has to be in place for each page you need to redirect Say for example you renamed your delivery info page from deliverrrrry.html to delivery.html - you want to correct your spelling. Here it would be better to use 301 so you can land people on the new delivery page rather than acatalog/index.

On the CP you create a 404 by going to error pages icon.

To create 301s you go to redirect URLs icon

hence why I used the htaccess.

you are using the term htaccess too generically, an htaccess file can contain both 404 and 301 commands as well as a host of other commands

[pinbrook]

They're not always. Only if trying to navigate from a non-www page.
if clicking from http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/index.html all links (Actinic and otherwise) show as www.

If clicking from http://budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/index.html they show without www

The above is normal behaviour, but you need to eliminate the ability to be on your site without www .ie the only way someone can fall into non www is if they type it into the browser.

[TraceyHand]

The above is normal behaviour, but you need to eliminate the ability to be on your site without www .ie the only way someone can fall into non www is if they type it into the browser.

Thank Jo, I understand that... but how? I don't know what I've done to enable it in the first place!

[pinbrook]

but how? I don't know what I've done to enable it in the first place!

it has been "enabled" by having a mix of links on your site. you've removed them from the root index, but you need to be absolutlely sure there aren't any others anywhere else.

[Mike Hughes]

Tracey,

I ran your site through Xenu's link sleuth (free and can be downloaded here :http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html).

Here's the relevant bits of its report:

Broken links, ordered by page:
http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatal...ent_Links.html
http://www.birightsparkslings.co.uk/
\_____ error code: 12007 (no such host)

http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/HomeLinks.html
http://www.organisedmum.co.uk/
\_____ error code: 12007 (no such host)

http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/info.html
http://www.actinic.com/
\_____ error code: 12007 (no such host)

http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/nappylinks.html
http://www.thenappylady.co.uk/
\_____ error code: 12007 (no such host)

4 broken link(s) reported


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List of redirected URLs
http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog
redirected to: http://budget-bumps.co.uk/acatalog/
status code: 301 (object permanently moved)
linked from page(s):
http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/
http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/postage.htm
http://www.budget-bumps.co.uk/bbguide.html

I guess if you remove the bad link from your postage and bbguide pages then the odd redirect should never come into play. I still wonder where it's coming from though.

Mike

[TraceyHand]

Thanks Mike, that's interesting.
I have changed the link on both of those pages already earlier today so they should be ok.
Like you said though, makes you wonder what is causing it but, now it's changed, in theory there should be no links to the non-www pages

Except previous customer bookmarks maybe?

It does imply that there is a 301 redirect in play though... which I can't locate!
It's not in any of my control panel settings and I haven't got it in my htaccess so I'm stumped!

(actually just noticed a link on homepage that is minus the trailing /, must change it later when boys are in bed)

Thanks again

[pinbrook]

actually just noticed a link on homepage that is minus the trailing /,

ideally this should point to domainetc/acatalog/index.html (its abit late to notice this- Sorry!)

ie include the index.html

I can't remember the precise reason for recommending including the index.html it may be SEO related

ie a link to acatalog is different to a link to acatalog/index.html