Useful SEO Tip

[grabrail]

We all know that duplicate content can harm your rankings, but did you know that unless you configure it properly your own site cna be the cause of its own duplicate content.

huh?

Basically your site can be accessed either by http://domain. com or http://www.domain. com

when indexing happens this can bee seen as duplicate content.

To get round this you need to have access to your .htaccess file on the route of your site.

In here enter the following code.

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^sitename.com  [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.sitename.com/$1  [r=301,nc]

Replace mysite.com and www.sitename.com with your own domain name

Hope this helps some of the beginners out there like me

[ndev2k]

I have been using this for a while and it means that all backlinks that include either www or not count towards to same domain

[omairt]

Originally Posted by grabrail

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^sitename.com  [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.sitename.com/$1  [r=301,nc]

Does this change the site name from sitename.com to www.sitename.com, or www.sitename.com to sitename.com?

[grabrail]

basically if somebody visits sitename.com they actually get to www.sitename.com

[omairt]

Originally Posted by grabrail

basically if somebody visits sitename.com they actually get to www.sitename.com

So to have them go from www.sitename.com to sitename.com, do I just swap the URLs in the code?

[grabrail]

i would imagine so yeah, ive never seen it done that way though

[nickjett]

I believe you can do this via Google webmaster tools also.

[tombsc]

I think some hosts do this automatically. Mine does (I think)

[bigalreturn]

Originally Posted by omairt

So to have them go from www.sitename.com to sitename.com, do I just swap the URLs in the code?

Spot on. As mentioned above you can do it through Google Webmaster Tools, but it's not 100% reliable, so better doing it with your code.

[aquascene]

This is good, thanks for posting it, i will change my site straight away

[Nero]

Cool. and "www.sitename.com" is a redirect to a real site

[MJ10]

Well cheers for the 6months bump!

But still, it's useful and I still need to get around to doing this!

[rider900]

So all we do it enter that code, with our own domains, into the website on the html bit?

Nothing else?

[Harvez]

been doing this since I started thought it was common knowledge :S

[Amiethest]

I tried doing this through google webmaster tools and it said I had to verify the http://domain?

I've verified the http://www.domain?

[Larkino]

ride your go to notepad, paste the code obviously changing the website links and save that as a .htaccess file (not as a .txt)
then upload it to your root folder.

it will redirect any links going from hxxp://sitename.com to hxxp://www.sitename.com. it means all your backlinks will point to the same site

[Amiethest]

Many thanks mate. Will get on that

[Cruelworld]

Originally Posted by Amiethest

I tried doing this through google webmaster tools and it said I had to verify the http://domain?

I've verified the http://www.domain?

Add the http://domain as a new site and just hit verify, then you can set your preferred settings to http://www.domain

[rider900]

Thanks i'll do that tonight then

[Dunstan]

Also, make sure that you don't just link to the http://site.com and throw in some links to the http://www.site.com. This'll make Google think your linking is more natural.