GoDaddy Customers: Very Important Info

Hi,

In another thread, there was a discussion regarding domain forwarding, 301, 302 redirects etc. On one of the many domains I have purchased from GoDaddy, I was using their "Forward" facility. Upon examining the header of the forwarded domain, I found that they were using 302 redirect. I wrote to GoDaddy support, and they confirmed that they use a 302 redirect. And they apoligized for the fact that a 301 redirect was not possible!

Just thought that anyone using forwarding at GoDaddy should know that. I keep hearing about the unfriendliness of the 302 redirect, but did not know that I was accidentally using one myself.

Ajeet

 

If its a temporary situation then you are fine but if you are promoting that main domain, you may run into problems. I don't use them for forwarding unless its a temporary situation for that exact reason.

 

That's the problem in a nutshell with a 302 redirect. Many, many, webmasters and websites are in the same position of accidently using this form of redirect rather than the 301, which is why the exploit is still possible.

 

how do you distinct 302 redirect from 301?
i sometimes get redirect links from directories and its a lil bit scary.

 

There's really nothing unfriendly about 302 - it's a temporary redirect and should only be used for things like form submissions (two other temporary redirect codes exist in addition to 302 - 303 and 307), etc. 301 is a permanent redirect and should be used for things like redirecting the client to the new domain name or to a permanently changed URL within a website.

J.D.

 

this does not answer a question how do i know whether a redirect from site a is 302 or some other?

 

Most tools allow you to specify which form of redirection to use and usually default to 302. For example, in mod-rewrite you can say [R] and the default 302 will be used or you can say [R=301] or [R=permanent] to make sure the code you want is returned to the client.

J.D.

 

dude i know how to set up a proper redirect, im asking how do i know that some site.com is redirecting to my site with 301 or 302?

 

go to www.nettica.com and for $50 a year you get 100 dns pointers. set up your template and then point your domain name to whereever you want. then you can set whatever type of redirect you want to set without having to rely on godaddy.

 

This Header Checker tool checks the header returned by a particular URL, I've used it to confirm one way or another whether there is a redirect used, and if so - what type.

Is this tool doing what I think its doing, or am I reading it incorrectly..? Should I be using another method..?

 

You don't have to - go to the command line and type this:

telnet www.google.com 80

The screen will go blank. Type this (you cannot use backspace - every character you type is immediately sent to the server; if you make a mistake, you will have to start over again; copy and paste will help; DO NOT type <Eneter> - this is where you hit your Enter key):

GET / HTTP/1.1<Enter>
Host: www.google.com<Enter>
<Enter>

J.D.

 

thnx mate this is exactly what i was looking for

first test - first bastard found:
Page http://www.mostpopularsites.net/index2.php?option=com_mtree&task=visit&link_id=945
Response 302 Found

 

AV1 - no problem - I love that tool - makes some of my research so much quicker

J.D. - So do you recommend typing that in telnet over using that header tool....? is it more accurate..? Is there ones I'm missing using this header tool..?

 

Depends on what you need. Telnet (or any other more sophisticated tool (e.g. http://www.xk72.com/charles/screenshots.html) similar to this) will give you more info.

The tool:

Response 	 302 Found
Last Modified 	No data returned
Content Type 	text/html
Last Cached (Google) 	26 Apr 2005 02:10:46 GMT

Code (markup):

telnet:

HTTP/1.0 302 Found
Location: http://www.google.ca/cxfer?c=PREF%3D:TM%3D1114634129:S%3DDFlcfvsEp2rDK
79W&prev=/
Set-Cookie: PREF=ID=236c865f3b241559:CR=1:TM=1312614129:LM=1233634124:S=w4hwmE2a
qF-41O2l; expires=Sun, 17-Jan-2038 19:14:07 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.com
Content-Type: text/html
Server: GWS/2.1
Content-Length: 214
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 20:35:29 GMT
Connection: Keep-Alive

Code (markup):

J.D.

 

Sam Spade is handy for this kind of thing (Among 101 other things )

 

Is it correct to assume that most domain registration services provide 302 redirect?

Most of our customers user framed redirection. We however provide both framed and 301 redirection. We have done this from the beginning and thought that 301 was the standard in which most registrar redirect domains.

I guess it was overestimation on my part.

 

I have a domain forwarded by GoDaddy but I don't see either 301 OR 302. I get a 200 header code returned.

Forwarded domain is www.psychlinks.net -- forwarded to www.psychlinks.ca -- this is basically just a parked domain I reserved for future use and redirected pro tem.

 

I just tried www.psychlinks.net it gets redirected with a 302. Most likely you didn't type (or your tool didn't) the Host header (see the example above in my post) and the hosting server replied with the default no-domain header, which is 200.

J.D.

 

"200 ok" doesn't mean "no domain" AFAIK... it means "found ok", no?

 

It really should be a choice given to the customer - some will pick a permanent redirection and some will pick temporary. There may be various reasons to use either. For example, permanent redirection is cacheable and temporary is not by default (it can be, though, if specifically instructed by the server). Another one would be that 301 can cause the browser to change favorites (in theory - as suggested by the HTTP spec; I don't know of any user agents that actually do this). There are some other differences.

J.D.