Unknown prefix (subdomain?) to my website

Forum Moderators: phranque

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Unknown prefix (subdomain?) to my website

nomis5

9:32 am on Jun 30, 2014 (gmt 0)

Searching google for "mywebsite.co.uk" I find an entry I don't understand.

My page "mywebsite.co.uk/widgets.html" appears as expected but so does "prefix.mywebsite.co.uk/widgets.html" - what's the prefix part? I haven't quoted the exact prefix because it only applies to (when I search in G) to my website and one other foreign one.

If I click on the link my webpage is displayed as normal. I've looked at the source and it looks exactly like mine. Any ideas?

phranque

12:43 pm on Jun 30, 2014 (gmt 0)

most likely your dns and web server are configured to handle wildcard subdomains, but you haven't configured a hostname canonicalization redirect.

lucy24

3:48 pm on Jun 30, 2014 (gmt 0)

I've looked at the source and it looks exactly like mine.

But is it yours? That is, does your visit show up in your site's logs? If yes, all is well and you just need to fix your domain-name-canonicalization redirect.* If no, some nasty scraper is working hand-in-hand with a shady DNS, creating a subdomain without the domain owner's knowledge or consent. (Physically this is perfectly possible. Morally and/or legally, not so much.)

* The current form is probably written as "if the request is 'example.com'" rather than the more thorough "if the request is not 'www.example.com'", assuming www.example.com is your preferred name. This is common.