Header checks can be done by a number of tools. The one I use (mainly because Shari Thurow showed it to me once) is at
RexSwain.com. Very simple form, you can tell it if you want it to follow the redirect or not.
What you want to see is something like this:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by RexSwain.com
Header (Length = 208):
HTTP/1.1�301�Moved�Permanently(CR)(LF)
Date:�Sun,�11�Sep�2005�06:19:28�GMT(CR)(LF)
Server:�Apache(CR)(LF)
Location:�http://www.toolbarn.com/(CR)(LF)
Content-Length:�232(CR)(LF)
Connection:�close(CR)(LF)
Content-Type:�text/html;�charset=iso-8859-1(CR)(LF)
(CR)(LF)
Content (Length = 232):
<!DOCTYPE�HTML�PUBLIC�"-//IETF//DTD�HTML�2.0//EN">(LF)
<html><head>(LF)
<title>301�Moved�Permanently</title>(LF)
</head><body>(LF)
<h1>Moved�Permanently</h1>(LF)
The�document�has�moved� here.</p>(LF)
</body></html>(LF)
Done |
That is showing a 301 that is properly done. If you see 302, it isn't correct. Worse yet is a 200 (200 OK) as this means that the domain actually responded instead of redirecting.
In case you're wondering, the ?'s are what are used to replace spaces so you can see exactly how many spaces are returned in the code.
301's are an essential part of owning multiple domains. We have
www.toolmountain.com |
www.justpowertools.com |
www.justcordlesstools.com |
www.toolbarn.com |
www.toolbarns.com |
www.wholesaletool.com |
www.rolair.com |
www.spotnail.com and a bunch of others all pointing to
www.toolbarn.com for various reasons. A few redirect to specific pages within our site, but most redirect to our homepage.
You don't even want to know about the domains for our parts site (I think I have a section of about 80 redirects in our httpd.conf file). Amazon used to own just about every misspelling you could think of for their name, but I couldn't get any of them to work tonight. Probably just my wireless connection.
Brian.