Can someone please explain what is the correct way to redirect a domain? For example, I own www.myniche.com and have been running it successfully for a couple of years. I recently purchase my competitor's website; www.sameniche.com and would like to redirect all traffic from the new domain to my original domain.

Is the correct way a 301 redirect using .htaccess file? Or can I simply point the new domain to the same directory as the old domain through my cpanel from my host?

Thanks,

John

Right, you are on the right way.

Right, you are on the right way.

lol. Im assuming you misread the post. Which way is the right way?

301 redirect

Yep 301 redirects are the best. Not only is it instant for visitors (as opposed to a meta refresh which might take several seconds), but search engines are less likely to think something sneaky is going on

Set up the 301. Easier than expected. Thanks folks.

I went ahead and created an .htaccess file to redirect the traffic...

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.OriginalDomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

...is there a way to track which traffic is coming from the new domain

Ask for 301 redirect from your web hosting company. Redirect on server side (not through .htaccess) would be better (especcially for SEO related issues).

Redirect on server side (not through .htaccess) would be better (especcially for SEO related issues).

Really? Because I am hearing otherwise from a number of other sources. Can anyone confirm or argue this point?

I think Travis is referring to this;

.is there a way to track which traffic is coming from the new domain

If you redirect using .htaccess, the redirect is triggered before any pages are processed, so no log entry is made and no on page code will be executed.

<added>
Well I hope he is, otherwise he's wrong and .htaccess (if your site is running on Apache) is as good as server side coded redirects

Is it possible to direct the traffic from the new domain to a specific page on the old domain? For example instead of...

RewriteRule (.*) http://www.OriginalDomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

...can I use...

RewriteRule (.*) http://www.OriginalDomain.com/newdomain.php$1 [R=301,L]