301 redirect root domain to www subdomain on godaddy windows hosting account

Question

If I type in domain.com and www.domain.com, they both show the same website, but show different urls in the address bar. I'd like visitors and search engines that just type "domain.com" to be redirected to "www.domain.com".

I'm using IIS 7 on a godaddy hosting account. How do I redirect all requests for "domain.com" to "www.domain.com"?

I have the default DNS setup, "domain.com" as my "A record" and the cname "www" points to my "A record".

Answer 1

You can't do this with the GoDaddy domain management tools, and I don't think you can from the server tools either. If you really want this feature, you can do it dynamically with ASP.Net by writing some code like this (assuming you have a default.aspx page):

<script runat="server">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
   if (Request.Url == "http://mysite.com")
   {
      Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
      Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.mysite.com");
   }
}
</script>

Answer 2

RewriteCond %{HTTP_Host} ^(www\.)?secondary-domain1\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.maindomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

You could also put something like this in your .htaccess file so every body reacts the same to it, not just Google.

Answer 3

<script runat="server" language="C#">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    if (Request.Url.Host.Equals("domain.com"))
    {
        Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
        Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.domain.com");
    }
}
</script> 

Answer 4

If you're using a GoDaddy virtual dedicated server or dedicated server then you can set this up in IIS.

I'm trying to find a way of doing this on GoDaddy using a non-dedicated server. I have to move some content about and want to maintain pagerank.

Answer 5

Updated Answer. This is a real late reply, but since this question came up in google, while I was looking for a solution, I found that you can easily do this using godaddy's domain tools.

These steps assume that your www name is already working.

In godaddy, view your list of domains. Click the check mark next to the domain you want to forward to www. Click the "Forward" button on top, then "Forwarding Domains". If you don't have any forwarding credits, you can "buy" them for free, by clicking the "Buy More" link. Next click the "Add one now" link and add your domain name prefixed with www:

Then give it time to propagate (up to an hour).