: Google only indexing alias? I run our research group website, but don't have direct access to the university DNS server. However, we have two addresses pointing at the same IP - one is the

@Sherry384

You could use a robots.txt file to inform Google not to crawl the old domain.
If the old domain still has a DNS entry and is active, place the following code into your robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /


If you need the old URLS removed quickly then you can do this in Webmaster Tools.

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@Lee4591628

Well, I am not too sure adjusting DNS entries is the best way to handle this. Or would even solve the issue. You do not have an IP address issue, but rather a content indexing & hostname change issue.

I would instead recommend using Apache rewrite rules—via mod_rewrite—to do this on lima.wustl.edu instead. This is—of course—assuming that you are running the server on Apache. If not, someone else should chime in with your server’s specifics. So here it is:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ pappulab.wustl.edu [NC,L,R=301]


What this will basically do—when set for the Apache config of lima.wustl.edu—is take any URL connected to lima.wustl.edu and send it straight to pappulab.wustl.edu but with a 301: Moved Permanently header status.

So a URL like this:
lima.wustl.edu/sometihng/over/here/go.html
Would be sent to:
pappulab.wustl.edu/sometihng/over/here/go.html
Links will not break. And the process is pretty seamless to a casual web browser. Meaning no interruption in access that is perceptible to a human. And because the 301 header status is sent, crawlers will take note & update links eventually. That is always based on the crawler schedule & logic. But I would say in a few weeks or months all of the URLs will properly be reindexed to go to pappulab.wustl.edu. To play it safe, leave this redirect up for at least a year.

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