How do I get my website to stop redirecting to google.com?

December 31, 2009 6:40 PM

Why would my website be redirected to google on my mac, but not my ibook or my iphone?

When I type in my website address (http://www.getfitslowly.com) on my primary imac, it gets redirected to google.com.

When I enter the same address on my ibook or my iphone, it goes to where it's supposed to go.

On my mac, I tried it on both safari and firefox and the same thing happened?

What's going on?

posted by smithmac_99 to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

because the dns you've specified on your mac, or the dns that it's automatically pulling, is resolving it that way. Try going to system prefs -> network -> advanced and using google's DNS servers manually.
posted by Señor Pantalones at 6:52 PM on December 31, 2009

Is it possible you are using Google's DNS on your computer, and it's caching the wrong thing for your domain? Try the DNS servers from OpenDNS ( 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 ) and see if you get a different result.

On OS X, you do this by visiting the Apple Menu in the top-left of the screen, selecting System Preferences, choosing "Network", and looking for the "DNS Server" field in your network interface (ethernet, airport, etc). The numbers can just be pasted in with a comma in between them.

Any luck with that?
posted by churl at 6:53 PM on December 31, 2009

Response by poster: pantalones and churl. I haven't tried either of your suggestions yet. Before I do, I was wondering why this would just randomly start occurring? Any thoughts?
posted by smithmac_99 at 6:59 PM on December 31, 2009

Did your website move recently? Type the following from the terminal on your imac and your ibook (unless you've cracked your iphone you can't do this on it):
dig www.getfitslowly.com

This is something like what you should get:

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.getfitslowly.com. 14326 IN A 67.205.2.45

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
getfitslowly.com. 172726 IN NS ns1.dreamhost.com.
getfitslowly.com. 172726 IN NS ns2.dreamhost.com.
getfitslowly.com. 172726 IN NS ns3.dreamhost.com.

This tells me that the IP for them is 67.205.2.45.


Also, type this on each from the terminal:
cat /etc/resolv.conf |grep nameserver

Are they different on the two hosts?

Also(just to be sure):
cat /etc/hosts

All you should get here are entries for localhost and broadcasthost on your mac.

Are they different? Was something set up for testing? Is your ibook and imac on a different ISP somehow?
posted by hylaride at 7:43 PM on December 31, 2009

Response by poster: thanks for the help so far. I don't have the skills or the time to work on this right now. As long as most people are seeing my site I'll work on it tomorrow. I'm scared of terminal for some reson
thanks
posted by smithmac_99 at 7:49 PM on December 31, 2009

None of those commands are destructive, but informative. in general, unless you type sudo in front of it (and then enter your password) and/or it involves 'rm' you have little to fear.

If it's still happening tomorrow, feel free to DM me and we can sort it out.

Cheers and happy Gregorian new year wherever you are.
posted by hylaride at 9:12 PM on December 31, 2009

As long as most people are seeing my site I'll work on it tomorrow

I wouldn't count on it. If your public DNS records are screwed up then it's very well possible that most people are NOT seeing your site.

But more likely it's that one Mac. Do those Terminal commands above and report the results.
posted by intermod at 9:30 AM on January 1, 2010

Response by poster: thanks all for the help. When I got home last night, it had resolved itself. I have no idea why this would have happened. Any hypotheses?
posted by smithmac_99 at 9:46 AM on January 1, 2010

Yeah, screwed up DNS cache either on your computer or on the DNS server that you computer was talking to. Don't worry about it too much, but next time use the above instructions to troubleshoot.
posted by intermod at 3:55 PM on January 1, 2010