I have a website that has the forum as the main page. The only way I could think of to accomplish this was to do a redirect so that when someone types in www.mydomian.com, it automatically redirects to www.mydomain.com/forums. I am worried that this may by considered to be "black-hat" by the search-engines and I will be penalized. Does anyone know if this method is accpeted or penalized?
Thank you for the responses. I was simply using this line in my index.html to redirect: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=forums/index.php"> I guess this is a big SEO NO NO??? Can anyone assist me in the code for an SEO-friendly 301 redirect for my index.html? Thanks again.
301 redirects involve editing your .htaccess file. Chances are you alread have one and if not you can create one. If you can't find the file and you're sure it exists, use an FTP program that allows you to view hidden files. If you need to create one, create a new .txt file for editing purposes, and rename it .htaccess when you're finished. In notepad or any html editor, insert this line of code for each url you want to redirect: Redirect 301 /oldpage.html http://www dot example.com/newpage.html The first section is the current path to your existing page and the second part is the url to the it's new location. Good luck! (The forum wouldn't let me post a url so sorry for the weird example)
Thank you for the htaccess info I just want to be clear on one thing though... Does the following redirect constitute a possible SEO problem: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=forums/index.php"> Is that line really a big SEO NO NO, and if so, why?
Yes not a serious one but why take a hit when you dont need to ? I am not sure of the exact code to add to the .htaccess file except when redirecting the non www or the other way then all you need to add is one line " RedirectPermanent / http://www.yoursite.com " Whoever got yoursite got a good deal & a whole bunch of free links I Would also like to see the code if someone can post it Thanks
OK, I got it up and working. I just opened up notepad, and added one line of code and saved it as ".htaccess" The code: redirect 301 /index.html http://www.mysite.com/forums/index.php That's it! Just upload it to your root directory and your done.
I would if I could go back in time! LOL! Unfortunately I've already installed and modified the forum, as well as installed and heavilly modified a classifieds software program that is now integrated with my forum. It would require me uninstalling my forum as well as my classifieds, then starting again from scratch... no thanks!!
or you could just change the paths in your config file for the software. I've moved software locations plenty of times and it's never been an issue.
For the record, Google considers a 0 sec meta refresh as 301, as far as I know. Not sure about other search engines.