domain.com or domain.com links?

[Dean]

Is there any affect in search engines, particularly google if the links to your site are domain.com or www.domain.com?

 

[weblord]

yes it does have that's why people are advised to optimize both by creating an .htaccess on domain.com that will do 301 redirect to www.domain.com
if not the search results are different using site:
and the page rank will be different.

 

[Dean]

So if I do a 301 redirect to www then it wont matter how I link?

 

[weblord]

absolutely
they'll both be optimized for serp and pr

So if I do a 301 redirect to www then it wont matter how I link?

 

[Dean]

Thanks, rep added. Could you show me what to put in the .htaccess to achieve this?

 

[weblord]

PHP Redirect

<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

put in index.php

or
add to .htaccess

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name

Thanks, rep added. Could you show me what to put in the .htaccess to achieve this?

 

[Dean]

I tried adding the code to .htaccess but firefox gives me a redirect loop error. Any ideas?

 

[weblord]

can you copy/paste the contents of your .htaccess here so i can debug for you.

I tried adding the code to .htaccess but firefox gives me a redirect loop error. Any ideas?

 

[Peter]

The following htaccess should work.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.your_domain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://your_domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

i strongly advise against using php to do this as it creating a lot more work for your server.

Regarding this optimizing both www. and non www. It does nothing of the sort. It simply optimizes the 1 that is being redirected too so that all incoming links etc count towards that 1 path.

If you tried optimizing both and getting them both in the SERPS you run the risk of duplicate content as well as needing to do a lot more work to get either of them anywhere near the top.

 

[weblord]

this is great, thanks.
OP: also find out if there's a conflicting line in your .htaccess that you have placed there before.

The following htaccess should work.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.your_domain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://your_domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

i strongly advise against using php to do this as it creating a lot more work for your server.

Regarding this optimizing both www. and non www. It does nothing of the sort. It simply optimizes the 1 that is being redirected too so that all incoming links etc count towards that 1 path.

If you tried optimizing both and getting them both in the SERPS you run the risk of duplicate content as well as needing to do a lot more work to get either of them anywhere near the top.

 

[Dean]

The following htaccess should work.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.your_domain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://your_domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

i strongly advise against using php to do this as it creating a lot more work for your server.

Regarding this optimizing both www. and non www. It does nothing of the sort. It simply optimizes the 1 that is being redirected too so that all incoming links etc count towards that 1 path.

If you tried optimizing both and getting them both in the SERPS you run the risk of duplicate content as well as needing to do a lot more work to get either of them anywhere near the top.

Thanks, but I am not sure if it is working. They both show the website but they already did that before and the URL in the address bar doesnt change either way so I am not sure if it is redirecting.

Also does it matter which one is optimised or does it not make a difference?

weblord: Could this be the problem

AuthName mysite.com

?

 

[weblord]

yes it does. this is the reason why domain.com and www.domain.com have different pr one is higher, to sell if you're capitalizing on pr domains w/ or w/o www this should display the same pr. often times these are concluded as fake pr which is not until checked by cache:domain.com on google.com

Thanks, but I am not sure if it is working. They both show the website but they already did that before and the URL in the address bar doesnt change either way so I am not sure if it is redirecting.

Also does it matter which one is optimised or does it not make a difference?

 

[Dean]

weblord I edited my post and u posted at the same time so check what I wrote at the end

 

[weblord]

if it's not your site then remove it from there
or much better to isolate the problem backup your current .htaccess and start with a new one if still not working you might be dealing with browser cache try to use a web proxy www.clearmy.info

weblord I edited my post and u posted at the same time so check what I wrote at the end

 

[Dean]

Doesnt matter, I got peter's code working now. They both redirect to domain.com so is it better like that or is it better to have them both redirect to www.domain.com or no difference either way?

 

[weblord]

it's the same it just balancing the pr

Doesnt matter, I got peter's code working now. They both redirect to domain.com so is it better like that or is it better to have them both redirect to www.domain.com or no difference either way?

 

[Dean]

ok cool. Thanks. I gave peter rep and I would give you some more weblord but I cant so soon after the last one