add additional domain

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  capeballet · Member · Jan 8, 2015 at 5:22 pm

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  Hi,

  I have a domain name http://www.capeballetclasses.co.za pointing to my blog. I have just registered a second domain called http://www.capeballet.co.za and pointed it to the same blog, and set it as primary. I want both domains to continue working for now. However, I want google to transfer all the traffic history from capeballetclasses.co.za to the new domain capeballet.co.za. I have tried using google webmaster “change of address ” feature to do this, but I get stuck with the verification process. I.e. in order to add the new domain, I needed to update the verification code on the blog. However, this results in a change to the verification code, which means that http://www.capeballetclasses.co.za is no longer verified. This results in me not being able to complete the “change of address”. So, I either need a way to add two verification codes to the blog or perhaps this is not required? Would appreciate your help.

  Regards,

  Julian

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  jeremeylduvall · Member · Jan 8, 2015 at 9:11 pm

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  Hi Julian,

  Could you clarify what you mean by “I want google to transfer all the traffic history from capeballetclasses.co.za to the new domain capeballet.co.za”? By setting capeballet.co.za as the primary domain on your account, capeballetclasses.co.za should automatically redirect to capeballet.co.za. Does that make sense?

  Once I understand what you mean by “traffic history,” I’ll be able to help more!

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  capeballet · Member · Jan 9, 2015 at 4:50 am

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  Hi Jeremy,

  Thanks for your reply. According to research, if one moves site to a new root-level domain, then one can use the Change of address tool in Webmaster Tools to notify Google to index the new URLs at the new address, while minimizing impact to current ranking in Google Search results.

  So right now, the google indexes to my site are listed under capeballetclasses.co.za – but I want that changed so that it lists capeballet.co.za instead. To achieve this, google advise that I do a 301 redirect at server/hosting side, but I believe that wordpress already does this. I.e. all additional domains automatically redirect to the primary, which is “capeballet.co.za”.

  I know that wordpress.com doesn’t actually require that I use webmaster tools as it will submit the site for google indexing. I’m just concerned that adding the new domain and setting it to primary will effect the existing google rank. In addition, I am concerned that there may be duplicate content issues with google, since I know have 2 different domains pointing to the same site, but I think that the 301 redirect resolves that. Hope this all make sense. thanks.

  Regards,

  Julian

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  jeremeylduvall · Member · Jan 9, 2015 at 6:51 pm

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  Hi Julian,

  Thanks for clarifying! We do automatically redirect all domains on an account to the primary domain as you mention. We do this through a 301 site redirect. So, if you setup capeballet.co.za as the primary domain, the other domains should be 301 redirected to that URL.

  For the webmaster tools, I would recommend verifying the primary domain you want to use going forward (which seems like capeballet.co.za). Does that help to answer your question?

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  capeballet · Member · Jan 10, 2015 at 4:09 am

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  Hi Jeremy,

  Thanks. I eventually found the support page which explained what you just said and I have made the change. So, capeballet.co.za is setup as primary on WP and I have verified it (along with http://www.capeballet.co.za) on google webmaster. The problem is that when I attempt to use the “change of address” tool to change the url reflecting in google search. It doesn’t allow me to execute the change because both the old and new url’s need to be verified (and WP only permits that one meta verification code is used).

  So right now, if I run a google search for “ballet classes for children in Fish hoek”, then it shows the old domain “capeballetclasses.co.za” and not the new one “capeballet.co.za”. I’m hoping its not an issue and that capeballet.co.za will eventually replace the old url once the crawl and indexing has taken place. Perhaps I’ve over-complicated this. :)

  Thanks for your help.

  Julian

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  capeballet · Member · Jan 10, 2015 at 4:21 am

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  Ahhh…I just figured it out. I think. Under domain management >> Edit DNS, you can add a TXT record for google verification. I noticed that my domain capeballetclasses.co.za already had a TXT record with a google verification string, but it was incorrect. I have updated that with the correct code and I was able to use the “change of address” tool. Thanks.

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  jeremeylduvall · Member · Jan 10, 2015 at 3:29 pm

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  I have updated that with the correct code and I was able to use the “change of address” tool. Thanks.

  Ah – great! I’ll keep that in mind if I run across this issue in the future. Glad you were able to get this resolved! Please let me know if you have any additional trouble.