Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

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dandv
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Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by dandv »

Looks like the two URLs point to the same content, but it would be less confusing and an SEO advantage to redirect one to the other.

I.e. going to newsgroup.xnview.com should to redirect the user to forum.xnview.com.

I work at Google and I'm suggesting this because it would improve search rankings as well.
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XnTriq
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by XnTriq »

Thank you for the heads-up, Dan!
XnTriq ([url=http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?p=82783#p82783]Forum search function bug?[/url]) wrote:As it turns out, Google is indexing pages from newsgroup.xnview.com & forum.xnview.com separately, and the sitesearch parameter doesn't accept multiple domains as input :|

As a workaround, I added...
  • <Param name="domains" value="newsgroup.xnview.com;forum.xnview.com"/>
... which puts radio buttons for the newsgroup and the forum sub-domain in Google's search form.
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XnTriq
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by XnTriq »

Pierre has reactivated URL forwarding (-:
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Drahken
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by Drahken »

Odd, since I'm currently ON newsgroup.xnview. (Hell, this thread is the first I've become aware that forum.xnview even exists.)

http://allspark.net/cypherswipe/xnview-redirect.png
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XnTriq
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by XnTriq »

Drahken wrote:Odd, since I'm currently ON newsgroup.xnview.
Hi, Drahken. forum.xnview.com is redirected to newsgroup.xnview.com (not the other way around).
XnTriq wrote:Up until the phpBB update of 2009, …
… forum.xnview.com was redirected to newsgroup.xnview.com via frame forwarding:

Code: Select all

<html>
<head>
<title>http://forum.xnview.com/</title>
<meta name="generator" content="ORT - Ovh Redirect Technology">
<meta name="url" content="newsgroup.xnview.com">
<meta name="robots" content="all">
</head>
<frameset rows="100%,0" frameborder="no" border="0">
<frame name="ORT" src="http://newsgroup.xnview.com/">
<frame name="NONE" src="" scrolling="no" noresize>
<noframes>
<body><a href="http://newsgroup.xnview.com/">Click here</a><hr></body>
</noframes>
</frameset>
</html>
OVH: How to create a free web redirection?
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XnTriq
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by XnTriq »

FYI: Google indexes newsgroup.xnview.com and forum.xnview.com separately :-|
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xnview
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by xnview »

XnTriq wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2020 2:30 pm FYI: Google indexes newsgroup.xnview.com and forum.xnview.com separately :-|
so i need to remove forum.xnview.com, i think
Pierre.
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cday
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by cday »

xnview wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2020 3:50 pm
XnTriq wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2020 2:30 pm FYI: Google indexes newsgroup.xnview.com and forum.xnview.com separately :-|
so i need to remove forum.xnview.com, i think
I think forum.xnview.com is a better name in 2020 -- more modern -- than newsgroup.xnview.com, other things being equal... :?:

But other things are quite possibly not equal, even allowing for a transition period?

Either way, importantly, links in existing posts to other posts would continue to function?
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XnTriq
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by XnTriq »

xnview wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2020 3:50 pmso i need to remove forum.xnview.com, i think
Retiring newsgroup.xnview.com in favor of forum.xnview.com would make more sense to me, …
https://www.study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-newsgroups-and-discussion-forums.html wrote:Access to a newsgroup is typically accomplished by using a designated newsreader, but e-mail and browser software can also be used. An Internet discussion forum is a website where users can view and post electronic messages. A regular web browser is used to participate in a discussion forum.
cday wrote: Tue Dec 31, 2019 6:41 pmBut the https://forum.xnview.com domain also works as you say, and to me it seems a better name in 2020... :?:
… but most links in posts to other topics point to newsgroup.xnview.com.

:!: Consolidating duplicate URLs has its pitfalls:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1663419#misuse wrote:Do not use the tool to get the right “version” of your site indexed. Many sites make the same HTML content or files available via different URLs. If you do this, and don’t want duplicates to appear in search results, review our recommended methods of canonicalization. Don’t use the URL tool to block the URLs you don’t want in search results. It won't keep your favorite version of a page; instead, could remove all versions (http/https and www/non-www) of a URL.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066 wrote:If you have a single page accessible by multiple URLs, or different pages with similar content (for example, a page with both a mobile and a desktop version), Google sees these as duplicate versions of the same page. Google will choose one URL as the canonical version and crawl that, and all other URLs will be considered duplicate URLs and crawled less often.

If you don't explicitly tell Google which URL is canonical, Google will make the choice for you, or might consider them both of equal weight, which might lead to unwanted behavior, as explained below in Why should I choose a canonical URL?
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9012289#index_coverage wrote:Your declared canonical URL, if the page explicitly declares one. You can declare a canonical URL in several ways: a <link rel="canonical"> tag, an HTTP header, a sitemap, or a few other methods. If your page is one of a set of similar or duplicate pages, we recommend explicitly declaring the canonical URL. For AMP pages, this should be the non-AMP version (unless it is a self-canonical AMP).
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xnview
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by xnview »

cday wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2020 4:44 pm I think forum.xnview.com is a better name in 2020 -- more modern -- than newsgroup.xnview.com, other things being equal... :?:
yes, but there is more indexed page from newsgroup :(
Pierre.
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XnTriq
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by XnTriq »

xnview wrote: Sun Feb 09, 2020 8:12 amyes, but there is more indexed page from newsgroup :(
So getting rid of newsgroup.xnview.com doesn't seem to be a viable option for a number of reasons. We don't want the site's pagerank to be demoted.

As far as I can tell, there's already a “server-side 301 redirect” for forum.xnview.com in place, which is why I don't understand why Googlebot keeps indexing pages with this URL.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066#redirects-method wrote:Use this method when you want to get rid of existing duplicate pages, but need to ensure a smooth transition before you retire the old URLs.

Suppose your page can be reached in multiple ways:
Pick one of those URLs as your canonical URL and use 301 redirects to send traffic from the other URLs to your preferred URL. A server-side 301 redirect is the best way to ensure that users and search engines are directed to the correct page. The 301 status code means that a page has permanently moved to a new location.

If you are on a website hosting service, do a search for their documentation on setting up 301 redirects.
Just curious: Is newsgroup.xnview.com or forum.xnview.com specified as canonical URL in the Google Search Console?
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ckv
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by ckv »

XnTriq wrote: Sun Feb 09, 2020 9:00 am Just curious: Is newsgroup.xnview.com or forum.xnview.com specified as canonical URL in the Google Search Console?
In my experience setting the canonical URL is the best fastest way to tell Googlebot which page to index. But, canonical URL is already implemented on newsgroup.xnview.com via rel=canonical <link> tag on each page.

Canonical page set on this page source code:

Code: Select all

<link rel="canonical" href="https://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?t=34545">
The problem here is actually the 301 redirect from forum.xnview.com to newsgroup.xnview.com. Now when Googlebot goes to forum.xnview.com it gets the 301 response and never actually gets chance to read the canonical tag from the page content. When Googlebot gets 301 redirect it should (and will eventually) drop the page from the index and start using the new redirected URL, but this only seems to happen when Google has the redirected URL also indexed.

Ironically removing the 301 redirect from forum.xnview.com could actually make Google stop indexing forum.xnview.com faster. (Asuming that canonical page is also correctly implemented on forum.xnview.com)

Edit: Not every page here seems to have the canonical URL set. I guess the canonical URL is set by phpBB and it's meant to filter variants of the same page within the domain. If canonical URLs on forum.xnview.com were pointing to forum.xnview.com before the 301 redirect was implemented this could be why Googlebot is keeping forum.xnview.com indexed longer than it should.
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CreativeWorld
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Re: Redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com

Post by CreativeWorld »

dandv wrote: Wed Jan 11, 2017 1:11 pm Looks like the two URLs point to the same content, but it would be less confusing and an SEO advantage to redirect one to the other.

I.e. going to newsgroup.xnview.com should to redirect the user to forum.xnview.com.

I work at Google and I'm suggesting this because it would improve search rankings as well.
Redirecting one URL to another can be beneficial for SEO and user experience.
To redirect newsgroup.xnview.com to forum.xnview.com, you can use server-side redirects
Simply you can do that with your htaccess if you using Apache ex:

Code: Select all

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^newsgroup\.xnview\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://forum.xnview.com/$1 [R=301,L]
or you can use canonical meta tag to tell search engine to crawl particular URL.
you can use browser developer tools to inspect network requests and verify proper redirects or use any online tool like redirect checker This can help you to get detail redirection chain and its status code, URL canonical . 
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