Redirects and other questions

[Datagg]

First of all, thanks for the invite Paz.....

I hope this was the right place to post this...


Hello yall...

The other day i was talking to a friend who said I should take me domain and split it in 2 words instead of the one that would not be reconized.

It made sense to me, so i registered another domain that had a - in it to seperate the 2 words.

After doing so, I asked my server provider whats the best way to go about this.

My questions were..

Should I move an index into the new domain folder?

Here was his reply. ( i will use asterisks in my name, for it always seems to get me in trouble when i use it here....its just a lingerie store,anyways...heres his reply...

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Hi Dan,

The best way to do this is to delete the new girlfriends-lingerie.com domain from your domains list, then under the Domains icon, edit the existing girlfriendslingerie.com domain and click on the button to add a Domain Alias. Fill in girlfriends-lingerie.com and leave the checkboxes in the default states. After about 24 hours, girlfriends-lingerie.com will properly resolve to girlfriendslingerie.com, without a redirect and without the need to copy website content.

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That was what he sent me...So i did what he said, now the new name with the - now works and goes to my site.

My problem here is, and this is why im wring to you all here. How would i submit this new domain name to the search engines when there isnt an actual, lets say "Index" to point it to. Sure the allais goes to my default store, but shouldnt there be somethign for the engines to see when pointing them to the new allias.

The main reason i did this is to get more exposure in the engines to my main keyword, thus seperating the url to a better seen keyword with the -.

How would you all see this thru? Did I do it right based o nwhat my website provider stated?

Another situation that arose...and Paz asked me to post is.....

Hello PAz..thank you for the reply......

the site im referring to in http://girlfriendslingerie.com



i just bough today the Merchant optimizer to create static links to my entire store.... The setup is to basically keepo surfers out of miva side till the yare ready to purchase.

The only problem im having now, is that the owner of the module suggests that a .htaccess be written to allow all links in miva to point to the staic ones..

i have tried his example, sent the .ht to my root, and the site didnt work at all. i then sent back up a blank .htaccess and all works again...

I dunno if you have any knowlegde of this rewrite, but this is what he says should work

RewriteEngine On

%{QUERY_STRING} Category_Code=(.*)& [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.girlfriendslingerie.com/...ingerie/%1.html [R,L] RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} Category_Code=(.*) $ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.girlfriendslingerie.com/...ingerie/%1.html [R,L]

RewriteEngine On

%{QUERY_STRING} Product_Code=(.*)& [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.girlfriendslingerie.com/...ingerie/%1.html [R,L] RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} Product_Code=(.*) $ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.girlfriendslingerie.com/...ingerie/%1.html [R,L]

If you have any insight on that that would be great...

As for the resoning of buying a new domain and the optimizer is to help me get into the engines better...its been a tough ride..... Those dynamic pages dont seem SEO friendly....

When I bought the new domain...it was suggested that I erase the folder that it resided in, and just make it an allias to the original.... So that i did....Ive read allto today that allot of companies are doing this..also as here, most are saying it was a bad idea..

quite confusing to say the least....

anyways, i thank you for you time and your reply...

if you have any suggestions or anything id sure appreciate it.

Here are both my sites taht are currenly both using the Miva optimizer

http://girlfriendslingerie.com The allias http://girlfriends-lingerie.com

and http://ymproducts.com

Bless

Dan


Thank you all for your time..

[Blazingpie]

hmmm... im not too familir with htaccess files, but shouldnt it look more like this:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond%{QUERY_STRING} Category_Code=(.*)& [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.girlfriendslingerie.com/...ingerie/%1.html [R,L] RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} Category_Code=(.*) $ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.girlfriendslingerie.com/...ingerie/%1.html [R,L]


ie, the first line has RewriteCond on it and each RewriteCond and RewriteRule is on a new line?

[Paz]

Hi Dan,

if that htaccess tip doesn't work, then get back to us wiith a bit more info ie what exactly happens when you upload the .htaccess. There will be a server "error log" in your logs directory, so if you can post what's recorded in there and as much information as possible then we can get a better idea of the problem.

With respect to your domain with the hyphen, then I wouldn't promote it in the search engines. It's a good idea to buy the domain for two reasons.

1) It stops a competitor buying it and putting up a competing site with the same name.

2) Some people will remember the name Girlfriends Lingerie and naturally put a hyphen in there and you don't want to miss out on the (small) number of people doing that.


But it doesn't make sense to me to promote the domain with the hyphen if you are effectively redirecting the search engines to the domain without the hyphen anyway. You're in a competitive field and should put all your energies into the one site, in my view.

Cheers,
Paz.

[Datagg]

Hi Dan,

if that htaccess tip doesn't work, then get back to us wiith a bit more info ie what exactly happens when you upload the .htaccess. There will be a server "error log" in your logs directory, so if you can post what's recorded in there and as much information as possible then we can get a better idea of the problem.

With respect to your domain with the hyphen, then I wouldn't promote it in the search engines. It's a good idea to buy the domain for two reasons.

1) It stops a competitor buying it and putting up a competing site with the same name.

2) Some people will remember the name Girlfriends Lingerie and naturally put a hyphen in there and you don't want to miss out on the (small) number of people doing that.


But it doesn't make sense to me to promote the domain with the hyphen if you are effectively redirecting the search engines to the domain without the hyphen anyway. You're in a competitive field and should put all your energies into the one site, in my view.

Cheers,
Paz.



Thanks all...

Finaly I got he .htaccess to work right. It took a few modificatiosn from the developer to work.

As for the otehr domain, it is indeed purchased..... And i will not submit ot to the engines if you feel it wouldnt matter.

Thanks again all....

Dan