I've searched Google high and low. There are many answers to this question. I even asked another question similar to this one however it lacked specificity. Something this question will not lack.
I bought a new domain a month ago. The domain name was too long to make a brand name from plus the social media accounts were already taken for it. After deciding on a brand name I then bought the brand name as a .com
, .org
, .net
and a 4th domain that was a good expired domain with great backlinks. I have redirected all 4 to my main site. My problem is I don't know apache code, Google has to many answers, how do I know If I redirected them properly? Properly as far as Google and my SEO are concerned I already know that they redirect to my website. That part works.
WHAT I WANT: I want to redirect all 4 domains to my main site, not have those 4 domains be indexed in Google (I don't have to worry about directives for indexing, crawling, which version I want; www or non-www, etc,.), not have duplicate content issues, want to have each one a 301 redirect, and I want the link juice for the 4th domain. A proper 301 will make sure I get the link juice.
Obviously redirecting the .com
, .org
and .net
to my main site will neither help nor harm my SEO efforts. The 4th domain (containing great backlinks) will help my SEO efforts if I have the redirect set up right.
Did I setup my domains to redirect to my main domain properly? Did I leave something out, forget something important? Lots of variables.
THE EXAMPLE - PROBLEM
Main Site: http://www.mymainwebsitename.com
These 4 domains below are the sites that are being redirected to my main site.
http://www.example1.com
http://www.example2.org
http://www.example3.net
http://www.example4.com
I have redirected each of these 4 sites to my main site using an .htaccess
file for each domain. Each are the same. Here are the directives.
# Rewrite Engine On
RewriteEngine on
# Redirect this entire domain, example1.com, to the domain example2.com
RedirectMatch 301 ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com
THE CONCLUSION
The major question here is this: This 301 redirect that I performed for each site. Is it correct as far as Google and SEO in concerned. like I said they work as far as redirecting to my site goes. I just can't know, without your help and guidance, if I did it right or left something out. This is the only redirect I have added to these 4 domains. So I still need to add more?
- I have not added the www or non www version directive. Being that I have redirected the domains I didn't think I needed to do this. Do I need to do this? Do I need to still treat this domain as if it is a website?
- Will this domain be indexed in the search engines or will me redirecting it keep it out of the search engines? I do not want duplicate content.
- The domains will have nothing on them so if i redirect and they are also in the search engine this could be bad but If I redirect them they shouldn't show up in the search results right?
- Do I need to ALSO use a
robots.txt
file that disallows the site from being indexed or will the redirect do that on its own?
Thanks for reading! It took me a long time to write this so please even if you down vote it to all hell at least give me some answers. I beg it of you. I have done all that I can to make sure this question was asked in a way that it applies to everyone, is very specific, and follows the rules. I have been battling with this for a while. Again, thanks in advance and I look forward to your replies.