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**Mike Hughes** · 21-Apr-2006, 01:26 PM

Currently, your .com domain is framing the .co.uk domain whereas what you want to do is redirect all visitors to the .com website to the .co.uk domain.

So you need to place the bit of code 1and1 have given you into an index.html file in your .com domain. This will send any visitors to the .com domain to your .co.uk domain.

Mike

**Kermy** · 21-Apr-2006, 01:34 PM

Out of interest, can you post the redirect code 1&1 gave you here? Unless it is done properly, Google and others can penalise sites for 'temporary' redirect rules, causing your site to drop in ranking.

**Donna Kempster** · 21-Apr-2006, 01:34 PM

[QUOTE=olderscot]
So you need to place the bit of code 1and1 have given you into an index.html file in your .com domain. This will send any visitors to the .com domain to your .co.uk domain.

Mike this is great but I am not totally sure what I am doing!! If I take off the redirect that I currently have on will this allow me to get to the .com web space which I can then put this code in???

**Donna Kempster** · 21-Apr-2006, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by Kermy

Out of interest, can you post the redirect code 1&1 gave you here? Unless it is done properly, Google and others can penalise sites for 'temporary' redirect rules, causing your site to drop in ranking.

This is from the email 1&1 sent me:

If you would like your .com to redirect to your .co.uk

First create a directory inside of your webspace. Then create a index.html file. And put the following in the file:
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="1;url=http://littleeskimo.co.uk">

What this file does is tells any browser who visits littleeskimo.com to go to littleeskimo.co.uk.

Then put this file inside the newly created directory. After this is done you must set the destination for your littleeskimo.com domain
to point to the newly created directory.

Cheers D

**Kermy** · 21-Apr-2006, 02:01 PM

Code:

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="1;url=http://littleeskimo.co.uk">

This code is classed by Google as a temporary redirect. While Google doesn't explicity say not to use this type of redirect, Matt Cutts (a highly respected Google bloke) strongly recommends not to do it this way. Sorry to give contrasting advice, but I'd go with a Google employee over 1&1 any day!

What you need is a way to tell Google et al that this site is permanently located at an alternate address. One way to do this is with an 'htaccess' file. To do this:

Click on the Windows Start button, click on Run and type Notepad, and click OK. Paste the following into the page:

Code:

Redirect permanent / http://www.littleeskimo.co.uk

Then go to File > Save As, select a file type of 'All Files' and call it '.htaccess'. Save the file on your PC.

Now you should connect to your website via FTP or the 1&1 Control Panel, and place this file in the root directory (typically the one above the acatalog directory). Now, if you go to www.littleeskimo.com, you should be taken immediately to the .co.uk domain.

You can use this site to see if the redirect you are using is considered search engine 'friendly'.

**Mike Hughes** · 21-Apr-2006, 02:04 PM

Ah, right. What they're suggesting is that you leave the forwarding on the .com domain, but point the forwarding to a directory on your .co.uk domain and the do the redirect from that point.

I guess you can do it that way. Create a directory called /forward/ or whatever you want in your.co.uk domain and then create the index.html file with the code they have given you inside that directory.

Then change the .com forwarding to point to your .co.uk/forward/ location.

The advantage of doing it this way is that no hosting is needed for the .com domain.

Mike

PS. If you prefer to do the .htaccess redirect then you can also do that in the /forward/ directory without needing hosting for the .com domain.

**Donna Kempster** · 21-Apr-2006, 02:17 PM

OK. I have created the file and saved it to my PC. We don't have a FTP so I have gone in via the 1&1 control panel and taken the forward domain name off. However I can't access the file directories for some reason and so can't put the file in the root directory. I assigned the .com address to the home directory and now it seems to all work fine. Is this ok do you think?? The SSl comes up and everything? Sorry to be so dim ... D

**Kermy** · 21-Apr-2006, 02:34 PM

I didn't realise you didn't have seperate hosting with your .com address, which is presumably why you can't access the directories. You could sort it out by following Mike's last post, either using the .htaccess file or the 1&1 code.

Having said that, I can now go to .com and use the site with SSL no worries, because all your product links point to .co.uk pages. If you decided to put the cart summary on at some point or use customer accounts this could cause problems with cookies, but seems OK for me.

**Donna Kempster** · 21-Apr-2006, 02:40 PM

Thanks very much

Thanks very much Kermy. Much appreciated, trying to understand this technical stuff is very difficult for a marketing person!!

As an aside do you know why google had indexed 50+ pages from our site last week and this week has only the home page indexed again. Obviously it's very difficult to get listed in natural search if google keep dropping your pages.

Any comments appreciated

D

**Kermy** · 21-Apr-2006, 02:47 PM

Google results can change daily, for a whole range of reasons - its very difficult to understand Google unless you are a google person! The most helpful resource I've found so far is Matt Cutts' website - a lot of the posts are overly complicated or not relevant to Google, but some articles are very useful and help to explain a few things. If only there as a simple answer...

**Donna Kempster** · 21-Apr-2006, 02:50 PM

Cheers, I shall keep trying! Will check out the link on Matt Cutt and see what I can decipher. D

**Duncan Rounding** · 21-Apr-2006, 02:51 PM

I have done this in an .htaccess file placed in the root folder of the .com domain. I've had no problems at all doing it this way (also with 1and1 as it happens although it doesn't really matter which Linux host you're with). This is the content of the file (courtesy of help from this forum some time ago):

Code:

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?mydomain\.com 
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.mydomain.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

**Donna Kempster** · 21-Apr-2006, 03:01 PM

Cheers. My problem is I can't find my folders in .com directory - I think prob. as they are all in the same webspace? Not sure as I don't really understand the jargon I'm afraid. We promote .co.uk and that is the main site so this was just incase people stumble across .com or type it by mistake etc. remember the little eskimo bit but not the ending that sort of thing.

D

**Duncan Rounding** · 21-Apr-2006, 03:12 PM

In your 1and1 control panel you can setup each domain to have its root in a folder that you specify. Just click on the domain name and then select an existing folder or new folder as the root. Then create a text file called just .htaccess with the contents I gave and ftp it into that folder - that's it.
(It may take a short while for the domain's root folder to be active)

We have done the same - promote the .co.uk but lots of people forget and just type the domain name - with this they all end up in the right place. We've recently done the same for .eu for our domains as well.

Announcement

Forwarding .com domain to .co.uk

Forwarding .com domain to .co.uk

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