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    4. How do I switch my website to www.mydomain?

    How do I switch my website to www.mydomain?

    On-Page / Site Optimization
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    • lauragee
      lauragee @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

      Could it be an issue of needing to set up a CNAME record with www? I just looked into doing that a little, but that requires switching my DNS settings back to my registrar, apparently. If I did that would my website be destroyed, or would it still be there when I switch the DNS settings back later? (Or is this CNAME thing completely the wrong idea?)

      BlueprintMarketing lauragee 8 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BlueprintMarketing
        BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

        Hi Laura,

        I see no issue with your canonical URL in my browser which has not cashed

        your website yet it shows <**link rel="canonical" href="http://organicencyclopedia.com/" **

        that's exactly what I want to see.

        To change your website to work with www. simply go to the settings part where it is illustrated above and change the URLs in

        | <label for="siteurl">WordPress Address (URL)</label> | |
        | <label for="home">Site Address (URL)</label> |

        Enter the address here if you want your site homepage to be different from the directory you installed WordPress.

        |

        so they both have www.  so you would cut and paste this URL into their

        http://www.organicencyclopedia.com

        that would give you the URL that you want. In order to keep your re canonical

        links updated with your exact website links I would substitute out the plug-in you're using for you the one below. However this is really not necessary just something I like. Make sure after you change your URL your plug-in all-in-one Seo pack plug-in is set to re canonical

        http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/

        <link rel="canonical" href="http://organicencyclopedia.com/" />

        I hope this is helped. Please let me know what you see as I believe it is because you are using the same browser. It's a catch a problem

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • BlueprintMarketing
          BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

          please let me look at your DNS before you go and make changes. You're using WordPress so you do not have to worry as much you have to have an a record pointed to

          organicencyclopedia.com  whatever your IP is

          www.organicencyclopedia.com whatever your IPS

          **** or****

          **** www cname whatever your host has provided you.****

          **** Let me do a dig on your DNS and I will tell you and you are just missing if it is configured correctly the www****

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • BlueprintMarketing
            BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

            your DNS shows

            oorganicencyclopedia.com. 86400 IN A 54.235.194.53

            the us you are missing the record needed to serve www

            please place a DNS record like this in your DNS

            www.oorganicencyclopedia.com. 86400 IN A 54.235.194.53

            with the www  on the left side and your IP address shown above on the right side.

            If I may make a personal suggestion I would strongly recommend posting with a managed WordPress host somebody like Zippykid, WP engine, pagely or web synthesis would be a preferred system to what you're using now.

            Zippy kid would probably give you the most bang for your buck by a lot As they would control your DNS for you and offer up one and all solution for everything WordPress.

            Please let me know that this is been of help sincerely Thomas

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • lauragee
              lauragee @lauragee last edited by

              Ok, I just tried changing both addresses to www.organicencyclopedia.com, and again I'm having the same problem. I tried a different browser, but it still says it can't open the page because of too many redirects.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • BlueprintMarketing
                BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                I'm sorry this did not attach correctly the 1st time. I wanted to make sure that you were able to see what I'm talking about please let me know that you can see this.

                Bx5d4fg.png

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • lauragee
                  lauragee @lauragee last edited by

                  This sounds like it should be very helpful, but I'm having trouble adding more records. I guess I shouldn't have gone with a weird cheap registrar 😕  I have the option to add more DNS records, but not with content on two sides...I just have a bunch of single fields for adding things like "name server 3:" well, really I could add any number of name servers, but that seems to be the only option I have. There are some advanced DNS controls (which I can't see yet) but when I click on that it warns me that

                  "In order to use Advanced DNS Manager, your Name Servers must be moved to Network Solutions managed name servers."  ...so that's why I'm afraid of my website being destroyed if I try any of that, but that might be the way to do it.  By the way, if I figure out where I can enter that, is that a CNAME record?

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • BlueprintMarketing
                    BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

                    I am almost 100% sure that you simply need a 2nd a record like this record below posted in is a photograph. I am using DNS made easy MS every DNS host is different  I prefer Dyn however I'm trying this one out and some do not show your domain name as it does not show my domain name in this photograph some will show the domain name all you have to do is enter

                    www no dot before the domain name or in the box to the left of the IP address that you have to add as well

                    so it will show

                    www.organicencyclopedia.com  IP address

                    ** and**

                    organicencyclopedia.com IP address

                    ** no cname is needed for this to happen.**

                    ** Only the correct a name is needed right now.**

                    ** Please let me know this was of help**

                    ** sincerely,**

                    ** Thomas**

                    Bx5d4fg.png

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • BlueprintMarketing
                      BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

                      Network solutions makes money off of scaring people that way. In my opinion they're the only ones that give that really Stupid warning to people to make them feel afraid.

                      do not change your name servers unless you are going to move to a better host

                      here is the way it is done on network solutions you do have to click advanced

                      When you move Name Servers to Network Solutions, your existing Name Servers will no longer be used.  As a result, website and email from other providers will be lost.

                      1.   Within **Account Manager, **select My Domain Names

                      2.   Select the domain name you want to change and select Manage

                      3.   In the green box, select Change Where Domain Points

                      4. Select Advanced DNS

                      5. Select the type of record you would like to work with

                      IP Address (A records)

                      This is the Address Record and is used to map the domain name server (or hostname) to its numeric IP address. In other words, the A record resolves a domain name or points the domain name to the correct location by means of the IP address.

                      1. In the IP Address (A records) section, click on the **Edit A Records **button

                      b) To add the new Host and Numeric IP addresses or update the existing Numeric IP addresses enter the appropriate information in the text boxes, if needed modify the TTL settings (7200 is the default) then click on the Continue button.

                      1. A confirmation page will appear verifying that your records have been updated, review the information carefully, and then click on the Save Changesbutton.

                      http://www.networksolutions.com/support/how-to-manage-advanced-dns-records/

                      you will be adding

                      www.oorganicencyclopedia.com. 86400 IN A 54.235.194.53

                      if you see the  domain already there like this on the left oorganicencyclopedia.com

                      simply type in www NO Dot then go to the box on the right and enter 54.235.194.53 if the box asking for TTL or time to live is blank you can type 86400 as your time to live is best to be the same for each a record and unless otherwise needed.

                      I updated this to get rid of the 1st a selection as It does not pertain to what were doing.

                      And I would again if this site is a business site or something you care about quite a bit strongly suggest using to manage WordPress host the only one that will control your DNS records for you on an excellent system run by DynECT

                      is Zippykid.com they are very inexpensive for what you get.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • lauragee
                        lauragee @lauragee last edited by

                        I only have fields that look like this:

                        name server 1:  _______________

                        name server 2: _______________

                        nothing with two fields like your picture

                        (I tried to attach a screenshot, but no luck)

                        AO21OQZ AO21OQZ photostream

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • lauragee
                          lauragee last edited by

                          Thank you! So, just to clarify, if I follow these instructions will my website be destroyed? I mean, the instructions you gave about how to add the record on network solutions.

                          BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • BlueprintMarketing
                            BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

                            Yes they are trying to get you to confirm that you want to use your own name servers and if I may add their DNS setup is garbage because they make money off of managing it for you.

                            To update A records

                            1.     Log in to Account Manger

                            2.     Within **Account Manager, **use the drop down under **My Domain Names **to choose the domain you’d like to manage and click the Go button

                            3.     In the green box, select Change Where Domain Points

                            4.     Select Advanced DNS

                            5.     Click the Continue button

                            6.     If the domain name was not previously pointed to Network Solutions® nameservers (DNS) you will receive a page with messaging regarding this change.  If you’d like to continue, click the Move Nameservers to Network Solutions® button

                            7.     In the IP Address (A Records) section, click Edit A Records

                            8.     Your current A records are listed in editable form, and any Network Solutions® service that is associated with the A record is listed below the Numeric IP text box

                            9.     The first three hosts listed are the most common hosts used with domain names:

                            o    www : Points to the specified IP address when Internet users enter an address, such as www.jimbikes.com

                            o     @ (none) : Points to the specified IP address when a user enters just the domain name without anything before it, such as jimsbikes.com

                            o    * (All OThers) : Points any unassociated host for a domain name to the specified IP address, similar to a catch-all feature that could be used for any misspelled host names

                            To add or edit A records

                            1.     Enter or edit the new host name in the Host column

                            2.     If needed, modify the TTL settings (7200 is the default)

                            3.     Enter or edit the IP number under the Numeric IP Address column in any remaining empty row

                            4.     Click Continue

                            ** You see they make you go through all that just to add an a record. Confirming the a records in their will not harm you at all.**

                            Simply confirm them and continue then follow the advice above.

                            I can't tell you how strongly I recommend using a different host.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • lauragee
                              lauragee @lauragee last edited by

                              Hey, I followed those instructions and I finally had a place to enter the information! So, it did have a value already in place for www, which makes me wonder if this was even the problem at all... but I did replace it with the value you posted, so now I just have to wait for the change to take effect, and hopefully it will all work. Thanks so much for your help!

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • BlueprintMarketing
                                BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

                                I promise you you will not have any damage done to your website by following the instructions.

                                All that is going to happen is you will confirm your name servers because network solutions it is about the worst place to host your DNS you can find.

                                Then it will allow you to see your a record it shows you as managing advanced a records it believes that it is advanced because you're not using their name servers you have decided to name them yourself. In addition I'm going to go as far as saying you should use https://www.cloudflare.com

                                to host your domain records however you would not get the ability to have custom name record without paying. If it means a lot to have custom name records I would not use cloudflare

                                I just used clould flare to back up your DNS records so you will have a copy regardless of anything and I do want to make you comfortable and have you know that you will not have your site destroyed by simply following what you need to do. If you are going to use  cloudflare let me know so I can take your records off and there will be a duplicate issue

                                very important  remove the c name  shown below and in the photograph that is a misconfiguration you need a 2nd a record.

                                www  is an alias of organicencyclopedia.com

                                It will also give you an error message if you try to add more than one www

                                so  delete the c name before prior to adding the a record because seeing names need to go to host names given by the web host not by just adding your domain name in the cname box we want it to look like this

                                http://i.imgur.com/Bx5d4fg.png

                                htttp://www.networksolutions.com/support/a-records-ip-addresses-2/

                                dWbk0c0.png Bx5d4fg.png

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • lauragee
                                  lauragee last edited by

                                  Well... I can now enter www.organicencyclopedia.com OR organicencyclopedia.com and go to the page without being redirected, which...that in itself seems kind of odd because I have canonical URLs turned on... but anyway, I'm still getting the redirection loop if I change the URLS to www in general settings. Guess I'll try again tomorrow in case I just haven't waited long enough, though.

                                  BlueprintMarketing 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • BlueprintMarketing
                                    BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

                                    Laura,

                                    it is your web browser

                                    http://www.organicencyclopedia.com/

                                    works fine having canonical URLs turned on makes no difference in a redirect it could say whatever and it would make no difference in the actual working of the server

                                    canonical URLs are a seo thing only the do not and cannot affect a redirect or start one on a server only a 301redirect  can do this it is your  web browser's cache

                                    I know this look your site as does not do any loops here

                                    http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/Ntpv7AiZh/www.organicencyclopedia.com

                                    lauragee BlueprintMarketing 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • lauragee
                                      lauragee @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                                      Yes, it also looks like it's working fine on my end right now... but I have the address listed as organicencyclopedia.com under general settings. If I change the main address to www.organicencyclopedia.com (which is what I am trying to do), it causes a redirect loop error again. (Also, just in case my All in One SEO was causing a problem I deactivated that and installed Yoast, but the same thing is still happening)

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • lauragee
                                        lauragee @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                                        But, Ok, that's good to know about canonical URL being only for SEO. I guess it's a redirection problem rather than a canonical URL problem.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • BlueprintMarketing
                                          BlueprintMarketing @lauragee last edited by

                                          the

                                          rel="canonical" href="http://organicencyclopedia.com/"

                                          is not showing www. to fix on Wordpress SEO just

                                          do what is shown here http://just-ask-kim.com/canonical-post-page/#.USnUa0XipdE

                                          right now it is here but it's a easy fix

                                          I hope I was of help rember I  use the transport seo to Yoast here

                                          http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-data-transporter/

                                          then remember to delete the old all in one seo

                                          lauragee BlueprintMarketing 7 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • BlueprintMarketing
                                            BlueprintMarketing @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                                            have you tryed a new web browser

                                            redirection problem a different browser as if it works for me and pingdom it sound like your computer is storing the old info

                                            I would tell your host to make a 301 redirect to www.organicencyclopedia.com

                                            as this should not be happening to you and not to me or pingdom.

                                            Remove the following redirect chain if possible: http://s.amazon-adsystem.com/iui3?d=assoc-amazon.com&enId=Associates&eId=view&r=1&rP=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.organicencyclop…http://s.amazon-adsystem.com/iui3?d=assoc-amazon.com&enId=Associates&eId=view&r=1&rP=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.organicencyclop…Remove the following redirect chain if possible: http://www.google.com/pagead/drt/uihttps://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/drt/si?p=CAA&ut=AFAKxlQAAAAAUSnWpv5PG8GBMgkej42-FWI_MQygcYW9Read more at Google Code

                                            this is the only code redirect

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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