topic Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address in Archive

not my web address

marrows — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:18:04 GMT

Hi, hope somebody can help me on this one. When you google, yahoo etc my web site, it normally comes up with the link and my web site address/ domain name at the bottom. Now it's coming up with https://www.btowstore.com/epages/BT3172.sf/en_GB . WHY? Thanks for any help offered

Re:Help!!!! not my web address

marrows — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:32:59 GMT

Can anyone help me on this please, any ideas where else I can ask for help?

Thanks

Horse & Pony Tack Shop

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

dave — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:15:55 GMT

The reason for this is that the eShop does not allow customer SSL certificates so all secure pages are used on the domain btowstore.com

The page that has been picked up by Google is one of your secure pages, you can tell this as it starts with https://

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

marrows — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:34:12 GMT

Thanks for that. What can i do? I paid to have my domain name not have BT's.

Have 'spoken to a rep online' and they say it is up search engines, what is put there. A bit pointless buying your own name then.

You are ment to get the ssl certificate with my package but when I clicked into it I've got to pay.

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

ironscot — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:19:41 GMT

I agree - something doesn't seem right - why would you have a website full of info, all on https (all the pages seem to be accessed via it) - unless it's because every page has the user login? What is your domain name as I did try searching but couldn't find it - maybe it's dropped off somehow?

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

ironscot — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:27:27 GMT

One way to check that the DNS servers know about your name is to open a command prompt window and type

nslookup www.<your domain>.co.uk (or .com or whatever) e.g. nslookup www.horseandponyshop.co.uk

and see if it finds an address for it..if it says non-existent domain then it's not there...

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

marrows — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:32:17 GMT

Hi, thanks for looking. www.horseandponytackshop.co.uk

Horse and Pony Tack Shop - Your One Stop Equestrian Store ...

WELCOME TO THE HORSE AND PONY TACK SHOP YOUR ONE STOP EQUESTRIAN SHOP ! ... Tel: 01246 819 568. 07835 618326. Email: info@horseandponytackshop.co.uk ...
https://www.btowstore.com/epages/BT3172.sf/en_GB/ - Cached - Similar This bit used to have my domain name

That is what i'm getting when I put horse and pony tack shop .co.uk

My site has only been live for a month or so, could this have anything to do with it?

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

ironscot — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:43:25 GMT

It seems to be coming up ok now (using http and your domain name)...I have to say I have seen my domain disappear too (also hosted by BT) for periods. It's always worth using that command (from Windows) when you think it's not working - and then you can raise a ticket against BT if it says not found. Maybe the search engines indexed it when your domain wasn't available. Not sure if you can resubmit it or BT can do it for you...it might sort itself out now...

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

dave — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:10:40 GMT

There is nothing wrong with your domain.

The 'problem' is that for the shops to do SSL properly, every page on ytour shop is available through your own domain www.horseandponytackshop.co.uk and through the generic domain https://www.btowstore.com

All that has happened is that Google has listed one of your secure pages higher than one of the pages using your own domain.

You *may* be able to do something about this in Google webmaster tools but this is the way that the eShop is meant to be set up so BT will not be able to to change anything.

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

ironscot — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:56:17 GMT

Hi dave

I've definitely seen (from an outside of BT DNS server) my domain not be found (for periods of time) using nslookup which if it were the same for marrows website then wouldn't indexing only be on the btowstore.com domain? It's very difficult to capture when this happens but I might try now that it looks like someone else is having a similar problem. You would also expect other shops to see the same ranking results as her/his website if all was well?

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

Samprod — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:35:02 GMT

This is obviously a common problem (see link below), the secure https URL's should not have been allowed to be indexed in the first place so BT need to find a solution!

http://btb.lithium.com/btb/board/message?board.id=Webhosting&thread.id=2486

I understand that a 301 redirect could be a simple way to resolve this issue (would redirect all https://btowstore.com pages to http://www.mydomain.co.uk) - this should also preserve any current search engine rankings on the btowstore site, and allow the search traffic to build on the correct site?? http://www.isitebuild.com/301-redirect.htm

As users, it seems that we do not have enough access to implement this redirect but, despite been told otherwise, I would have though it was easy enough for BT...?

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

marrows — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 08:52:36 GMT

Hi, thanks for all your comments.

Is there any one on here from BT that could comment?

As it is still doing it - BT domain name - not mine I paid for.

I don't know if it's done any good but I have resubmitted my site again to google. I'm sorry but i still don't understand the SSL thing. Can anyone explain in plain english!

Thanks again

Horse & Pony Tack Shop

Re: Re:Help!!!! not my web address

dave — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:48:55 GMT

SSL is secure pages, eg pages that start with https and show a padlock icon. THis is required for users logging in, and anything that involves sensitive information.

Once a user is logged in, the SSL connection will stay active so all your pages have to be accessable through SSL.

For SSL to work correctly, any domain using it needs to have a certificate so that anyone conducting a secure transaction knows they are connected to who they should be and not someone else. (This is a bit simplified but you get the idea).

Rather than allowing the shop and domain owners to use their own SSL certificate, BT has set this up so that they all use the same SSL certificate which is registered to the domain btowstore.com.

I believe it is also set up so that all eShops are also available on the btowstore domain through a non secure connection. I think this is just due to the way BT has it set up. I think the problem is that some people don't want to use their own domain with the shop so this btowstore.com domain has to be there for the to use.

PS, I am seeing your own domain on Google. Maybe it depends on what you search for.

Re: not my web address

eShopTeam — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:48:25 GMT

Hello,

Dave's explanation of the way the SSL works with the shops and why the shops are accessible via the www.btowstore.com domain as well as your own domain is absolutely correct.
As to why your shop pages did appear with the https://www.btowstore.com/... before the pages with your own domain I can only speculate. Maybe it was linked from the outside or the search engine crawler found it by browsing the https://www.btowstore.com/epages/... pages.
The important thing is that URLs containing your domain will in the long term be ranked higher in the search results than URLs with the generic btowstore domain (with or without https). In your case it was just a temporary switch, as new found results will be ranked higher at first.

Re: not my web address

Samprod — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:16:07 GMT

Can BT perform a 301 redirect to solve this problem straight away?

Please also see http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?fid=26ea9e00336f2d0a00046eeaadc2999d&hl=en

Regards

Re: not my web address

dave — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:29:01 GMT

Because all the shops are set up for this btowstore.com domain, I wouldn't have thought a 301 redirect was possible without it affecting all the users shops to your own domain.

Perhaps eShopTeam can confirm this.

Re: not my web address

Samprod — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:44:58 GMT

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your response

All the shops do have the same https://www.btowstore.com, but they also have an extra part that is unique to each shop, and is included in the URL of every page - see example below.

https://www.btowstore.com/epages/BT2956.sf

Therefore, instead of trying to redirect from https://www.btowstore.com (i.e. all eShops) to http://www.mydomain.co.uk, a 301 redirect could be isolated to an individual shop by redirecting from https://www.btowstore.com/epages/BT2956.sf to http://www.mydomain.co.uk/epages/BT2956.sf

Do you think this is possible?

Re: not my web address

Samprod — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:34:54 GMT

Any News?

Does the ePages update with the new feature allowing short URL's help resolve this problem?

We have created the short URL's in the back office, but they are not showing when using the website - does this take time to activate? Is this feature active with BT eSops yet?

Re: not my web address

eShopTeam — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:41:07 GMT

Hello Samprod,

Please see my reply in http://btb.lithium.com/btb/board/message?board.id=Webhosting&message.id=2675

Sincerely,