New URL same Same Host and IP...What Now?

[emilio_mar]

Hi,

We've just got a new domain and would like to change our websites current domain to the new one but we're going to be using the same hosting so our IP address will stay the same.

It's only the extension thats actually going to change from .co.za to .com and .co.za should then in the future just point to the .com

I've read a bit about 301 redirects etc. but is this applicable in our case? How should I go about it properly without irritating google to much?

For reference it's www.coral-i.co.za which we want to change to www.coral-i.com

Many Thanks
Emilio

[Duncan Pollock]

I'm reasonably certain that you should simply go the 301 redirect route. Your retention of host won't, to my mind, make a scrap of difference.
However, I'm also not sure that your IP will stay the same. I've always thought that every URL has a distinct number allotted to it, and your ...com and ...co.za are different in terms of their website address as opposed to their content, are they not?

Duncan

[Mel]

Use a 301 redirect to point to the .com domain from the old domain. You can simply put this link at the bottom of your .htaccess file (making sure to leave a blank line before):

Redirect permanent / http://www.new-url.com

The vast majority of websites do not have an IP address assigned, they are on shared hosting where hundreds of URLs share the same IP.

[emilio_mar]

Thanks for the reply guys,

We're going to keep the same hosting, all our web files are the same.

So essentially coral-i.co.za would just become coral-i.com. If I put a 301 redirect in the .htacess then I would essentially be putting the permanent redirect in coral-i.com's .htaccess

Now I'm really getting confused???

[le_gber]

Hi emilio_mar,

if all your file names are the same then simply use a 301 redirectmatch

place this in the .htaccess of www.coral-i.co.za

RedirectMatch permanent ^[/]?(.*)$ http://www.coral-i.com/$1

hope this helps

[le_gber]

I just re-read you post:

KEEP BOTH DOMAINS AND DO THE 301 FROM CO.ZA TO .COM

otherwise you will loose the Google PR you have and will probably end up in the Google sandbox - you might even get penalised for duplicate content if you put up another copy of your site on a new domain.

it migh cost a bit more in the short term, but make sure you do so at least for a couple of months.

Hope this helps.