web design issue... http:// vs http://www

daithisean · 22-03-2010 06:02PM #1

Hi folks

A friend who knows about SEO told me its a bad idea when somebody types in your website in a browser as http://mywebsite.com (example) it goes to http://mywebsite.com rather than getting automatically redirected to http://www.mywebsite.com (typing the URL with prefix 'www' brings you to http://www.mywebsite.com). Something to do with Google splitting the pagerank between two websites, one with and one without the 'www' prefix.

He told me there is some code you can add to your homepage html that will perform this redirect. Has anybody heard about this?

TheWaterboy · 23-03-2010 10:19AM

This is known as a canonical url - It is the process of picking the best URL when there are several choices.

Firstly you should make sure that all your pages link to either one or the other: http://mywebaddress.com or http://www.mywebaddress.com
Dont mix them - this makes sure that Google picks up the address URL that you want on all pages.

You can then add a 301 redirect into your htaccess file so any traffic that comes from http://mywebaddress.com will be automatically redirected to http://www.mywebaddress.com

Just Google "301 redirect" to find out how to do this.

CoNfOuNd · 23-03-2010 02:22PM

You may be able to create a 301 redirect using your control panel without having to create the code yourself.

For example if your webhost uses cPanel control panel it can be done very easily:
http://www.spiralhosting.com/how-to/redirect-non-www-to-www-url-using-cpanel/

mneylon · 23-03-2010 05:52PM

Have a look at: http://www.modrewrite.co.uk/mod-rewrite/canonical-urls-with-mod-rewrite.html

It doesn't really matter which one you choose - choosing one makes sense though ..

web design issue... http:// vs http://www

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