Cannot 301 redirect, alternatives?

[Richard555]

Hi, the company has changed it's name so now under a different domain. All pages have been 301 redirected on a 1:1 basis apart from the home page. For some reason IT cannot 301 redirect the old home page to the new website home page. At suggestions? Perhaps canonical it? Meantime the old home page copy has been changed to say the company name has changed and a link to the new website. Any help greatly appreciated.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

You could use the Change of Address in Google Webmaster Tools. You will find this under the Configuration heading.

You can read more about this here also:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105

Andy

[StalkerB]

I'd take it out of ITs hands.

Can't think of a reason why they can't 301 it, it but you can forward it (no masking) at registrar level.

If they need to keep the MX records or something they can do that there as well.

[Richard555]

Hi Barry & Andy Many thanks for the replies. Re registrar level - would that not remove the 1:1 301 redirects already in place? Re Webmaster change fo address - indeed, but I was holding off doing that till I had the home page issue sorted. Perhaps I should just do it? Many thanks once again guys!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

As Barry said, I can't think why a 301 can't be added to the homepage, but the change of address is there for exactly this reason and will help Google retain your site's ranking (their words)

Andy

[StalkerB]

Yeah, sorry, would get rid of the 1-to-1s (can't think of a work around just now).

See if you can find out why they can't do it. If it is something like MX records then change those and put the 301 in normally.

You could also put a meta refresh in to take customers to the new page; no real SEO value though.