not my web address - Page 2

marrows · ‎12-08-2009

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

Samprod · ‎14-08-2009

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...?

marrows · ‎15-08-2009

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

dave · ‎16-08-2009

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.

eShopTeam · ‎19-08-2009

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.

The eShop Team

Samprod · ‎20-08-2009

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

dave · ‎20-08-2009

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.

Samprod · ‎21-08-2009

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?

Samprod · ‎28-08-2009

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?

eShopTeam · ‎04-09-2009

Hello Samprod,

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

Sincerely,

The eShop Team