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Google Indexing BaseKit URLs


Google will index any site that it can access. When Google crawls a site, it will assume that the URL it used to reach the site is the proper URL to index; but this is not always the case when there are multiple URLs to the same site.

While having two URLs can be very useful for viewing a page before the domain propagates, it can sometimes cause some minor issues. Google and other search engines are able to guess the preferred URL based off of searches done in their respective browser toolbar in addition to robots which crawl the internet and index sites. This can result in your associated URL being indexed to search engines rather than your actual domain. This article will take you through the steps to resolve this issue if it has occurred.

Your Two BaseKit URLs

Since any BaseKit site is actually hosted on a separate server from your account's server (due to proprietary rights), there are actually two URLs created for every HostGator BaseKit site.

  • The actual domain on which you have installed BaseKit (www.example.com)
  • The associated URL which is created on the BaseKit server.*
* This associated URL is used to pull your Basekit content, displaying it on your domain through a .htaccess redirect.

How to Avoid Indexing of the Wrong URL

To avoid having the associated URL from the BaseKit server indexed, you will need to set the domain to host the Basekit website using your domain (through a .htaccess redirect). We have simplified the process for you in the following instructions:

  1. Log into your cPanel.
  2. Click on the BaseKit icon under the Software/Services section.
  3. Find the active BaseKit site you want to make live through your domain.
  4. Click the radio button with your domain name as pictured below.

dashboard view
Click the image for a larger preview

  1. You will then be taken through steps to publish your BaseKit site to your domain.

Once these steps have been completed, it may take some time for your site to be re-indexed properly. To speed up the process, you can contact Google directly or you can correct the issue via the Google webmaster tools.

If your domain was already published, but the associated URL is still being indexed, deactivate BaseKit by selecting the associated URL and then republish BaseKit using the above steps.

To see our elaboration of how search engines calculate the canonical URL, feel free to reference our Canonical URL article.