For all the Spinal Tap fans who are also on Google+

I read a post today from Seth Godin, Faux familiarity is worse than none at all, about how often marketers today overuse and abuse personalization when communicating electronically with prospects and customers.  I have been an avid fan and promoter of CRM (customer relationship management and customer relationship marketing) principles and practices for more than a decade and have seen many of these techniques successfully implemented as well as terribly abused over the years.

Companies spend a significant amount of time and money creating incentives to attract new customers.  This is an age-old tactic that continues to be used because it works.  These incentives range from free services, percentages off their contracts or some other perk or tchotchke.  Regardless of their success, I have always wondered depending upon the value of the incentive, how current and long-term customers perceived these tactics…especially if they are not eligible.

Recently I came across a request on Twitter for an effective means to update the .htaccess file to redirect all pages to a new domain without having to update for all subdirectories.  Here are a couple choices which can be easily placed in the root .htaccess file.

OPTION 1 (this does not need the RewriteEngine module)

• Redirect permanent / http://YourNewDomainAddressHere.com/

Option 2 (this requires the use of the RewriteEngine module)

• Options +FollowSymLinks
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^oldwebsiteaddress.com$ [OR]
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.oldwebsiteaddress.com$
  RewriteRule (.*)$ http://www.YourNewDomainAddressHere.com/$1 [R=301,L]