610496 - Have www.mozilla.com/* 301 to www.mozilla.org/* with some exceptions

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[Laura Forrest]

Please change the domain name of mozilla.com to mozilla.org.

This is part of the overall domain name strategy project driven by the website taskforce. 

Timing: We're aiming to change this domain before the launch of Firefox 4. 

More details here: 
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Websites/Taskforce/Proposals/Domain_Name_Strategy

Here's a link to the overall tracking bug for this project: 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=606278

Comment 1

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

(In reply to comment #0)
 
> Timing: We're aiming to change this domain before the launch of Firefox 4. 

This isn't what I remember talking about.  I thought we were putting this off until the new design launched.

Comment 2

[David Boswell]

To clarify, we're opening the bug now since we assumed there would be a lot of preparation before the switch happened.  The timing of the actual switch would ideally be early 2011 -- maybe end of January, but exact date is to be determined based on discussions.  The new mozilla.com is going live in December, so this would be after that went live.

Comment 3

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

Oh! hah, I read "launch of Firefox 4" as "launch of redesign"... my bad!

Comment 4

[matthew zeier [:mrz]]

What's the IT action?  

What happens when someone types "www.mozilla.com" into their browser?

Comment 5

[David Boswell]

> Please change the domain name of mozilla.com to mozilla.org.

And a note about this: the existing mozilla.org content will remain where it is and the mozilla.com content will mostly go to mozilla.org/firefox.  So with some exceptions this would be changing:

mozilla.com/firefox/* to mozilla.org/firefox/*

Exceptions include things like some of the About content now at mozilla.com/about would go to mozilla.com/firefox/about

Comment 6

[matthew zeier [:mrz]]

So this summary should really change to reflect:

"Have www.mozilla.com 301 to www.mozilla.org/firefox/" ?

Comment 7

[David Boswell]

Changing summary.  

For your specific example, I'm not sure if www.mozilla.com/index.html will go to www.mozilla.org or www.mozilla.org/firefox but we'll document anything that doesn't fit with having www.mozilla.com/* 301 to www.mozilla.org/*

Comment 8

[matthew zeier [:mrz]]

I feel this bug should live elsewhere until it's ready to deploy.  Who owns this?

Comment 9

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Changing summary.  
> 
> For your specific example, I'm not sure if www.mozilla.com/index.html will go
> to www.mozilla.org or www.mozilla.org/firefox but we'll document anything that
> doesn't fit with having www.mozilla.com/* 301 to www.mozilla.org/*

mozilla.com -> mozilla.org/firefox, because that's where our download page will be.



Keep in mind, this might not be as simple as creating a 301 redirect.  We need to figure out how to make the mozilla.com and mozilla.org code bases work together under one domain (e.g. there might be changes to locale detection/redirection, 404 handling, etc)

Comment 10

[David Boswell]

> mozilla.com -> mozilla.org/firefox, because that's where our download page will
> be.

The main Firefox download page at mozilla.com/firefox will certainly redirect to mozilla.org/firefox but mozilla.com/index.html is a page that's separate from the main Firefox download page and could be redirected somewhere else (is mozilla.com the intro to Mozilla or another page for Firefox downloads)?

> Keep in mind, this might not be as simple as creating a 301 redirect.  We need
> to figure out how to make the mozilla.com and mozilla.org code bases work
> together under one domain (e.g. there might be changes to locale
> detection/redirection, 404 handling, etc)

This does need to happen too, but it may be worth looking into options to set up the redirects first and then integrate the code bases after since you're right that there is a lot that goes along with making the code bases work together.

Comment 11

[matthew zeier [:mrz]]

I don't really want this bug in my queue until you guys work out the details.  Who owns this?

Comment 12

[Alex Buchanan [:abuchanan]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> The main Firefox download page at mozilla.com/firefox will certainly redirect
> to mozilla.org/firefox but mozilla.com/index.html is a page that's separate
> from the main Firefox download page and could be redirected somewhere else (is
> mozilla.com the intro to Mozilla or another page for Firefox downloads)?

I would say www.mozilla.com/index.html is currently one of the main Firefox download pages.  We should be careful about directing it to anything else but an optimized download page, considering it could have a huge effect on downloads.


> This does need to happen too, but it may be worth looking into options to set
> up the redirects first and then integrate the code bases after since you're
> right that there is a lot that goes along with making the code bases work
> together.

It's likely not going to work that way.  If we throw up the redirects without checking how the code bases work together, we could end up with broken URLs, pages, and behavior.

Comment 13

[David Boswell]

To address Alex's comment about making the code bases of mozilla.org and mozilla.com work together, I've opened a tracking bug to list of all the issues that are relevant to that.  

For this bug, the main question is what items on the list in bug 610724 need to happen before we can change the domain?  For instance, design issues wouldn't block the domain switch but having separate repositories might.

Alex, if you're available to talk to Laura and me about this, we'd appreciate your input on that list and how it relates to this bug.

Comment 14

[James Long (:jlongster)]

This bug is old and a lot has changed since this. Please see:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla.com/2011-Rebranding-Project#Phase_3:_Rebrand_Mozilla.com

Starting new discussion in bug 670118