SEO when using CNAME redirection

[richrf]

Hi everyone,

I am experimenting with some ideas with links.com. One of the ideas is to use the corank service in order to test out the possibilities of developing a specialized Digg-like site.

Right now I am redirecting http://links.links.com to the corank site, which provides the Digg-like hosting service (I am targeting announcements/press releases for new and hot websties). My question is, whether this redirection has any effect on SEO since it is a redirection.

Thanks.

Rich

[AussieWebmaster]

redirects pass the rank etc. to the secondary page... in essence the old page no longer exists....

[richrf]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

redirects pass the rank etc. to the secondary page... in essence the old page no longer exists....

Hi,

Thanks for your response to my question. I still could use a bit more clarification, since I am clear on what happens in the case that the redirection is to a remote site, which is servicing the request (in this case it is Corank.com), but the url is a subdomain under my domain, in this case links.links.com? Does Corank get passed the rank or do I retain it?

Thanks again for your help with this question.

Rich

[Corona]

Originally Posted by richrf

Thanks for your response to my question. I still could use a bit more clarification, since I am clear on what happens in the case that the redirection is to a remote site, which is servicing the request (in this case it is Corank.com), but the url is a subdomain under my domain, in this case links.links.com? Does Corank get passed the rank or do I retain it?

A CNAME is not a redirection per-se, but a way a domain is resolved. When I go to links.links.com, I see I stay in links.links.com, so links.links.com is the (sub)domain that gets the points (Page Rank, Alexa rank, etc).

A redirect would be if when I enter links.links.com in my bowser, I end up at a different URL (such as corank.com). If that was the case, then corank.com would "get the points". In your case, corank.com gets nothing. links.links.com does.

So saying "CNAME redirection" can be misleading. Again, a CNAME is not really a redirect, just a convenient way to resolve domain names internally. Another way would be assigning DNS "A" records. In short, any domain/subdomain needs to have either an A record or a CNAME record, and neither of them affects your pagerank, etc. no matter where you're pointing at. Without an A or a CNAME record, your site would simply not work.

[richrf]

Thanks a lot for the explanation.

Rich

[mcanerin]

On this topic, you can actually use CNAME to do redirection, and it's treated as a 301 by search engines.

However, it is strongly not recommended. There are several reasons, but the most important is that it's really, really easy to screw things up using a CNAME even if you do know what you are doing, and in the hands of a newbie or an even moderately complicated setup it's just asking for trouble.

But it can be done. If you are careful and know exactly what you are doing. Keep in mind that one minor mistake can lose your email, among other things.

To the OP's point, I agree with Corona - if you type in a URL and the page loads while keeping that URL, it's not a redirect to a search engine.

Ian

[richrf]

Thanks Ian.

I am pretty clueless about the process. What I am doing is experimenting with using Corank, a Digg-like whitelabel host application site, and redirecting one of my subdomains: links.links.com, to Corank. Corank would normally use links.corank.com as my url address.

Hostgator handled the job on my side, and Corank handled it on their side. It took a while to get it right (I hope it is right), but it seems to be working.

My aim was to see what kind of traffic, a social news site like Digg would generate on my site. It is a pretty inexpensive way to experiment, and Corank is pretty solid - as compared to a script like Pligg. During this process, I wanted to get some idea about how it would effect any Page or SERP ranking for Links.com.

Thanks for your advice. Much appreciated.

Rich