I have a self hosted wordpress blog and when i set it up it defaulted to http://mydomain.com/blog The rest of my site displays as http://www.mydomain.com. I am looking for a little advice and help around. 1. can i change my blog to dispaly and use http://www.mydomain.com/blog and how would i do this. Is it in general settings. 2 if i do change will i lose all indexed pages and the good SERPS my blog has established for its very specific niche. 3 Or any other negative effects? It is a relatively new blog though seems to be causing problems for webmaster tools and analytics as they are in different formats. And would like them all web pages to display the same. Any advice and help will be much apreciated. Thanks
I have researched the above since posting and can find no information. Would really appreciate some advice. Thanks
Both of them should work together.. If you are talking about your http://hip-consultant.co.uk/blog/ blog, then you must enable both hip-consultant.co.uk and www.hip-consultant.co.uk from your hosting's control panel. Normally, this can be found under "URL Forwarding" section.
Thanks for your response, appreciated. Are we talking my web hosting panel? The problem is that when i create sitemaps for google they want them in same format otherwise errors are coming back. Would like to keep www.hip-consultant.co.uk and have blog display as www.hip-consultant.co.uk/blog/ rather than http://hip-consultant.co.uk/blog. In SERPS the blog pages display as hip-consultant.co.uk rather than with www. In wp settings - general there is WordPress address (URL) and Blog address (URL). These are set without www. If i change here to include www. will i lose indexed pages etc. So do i redirect in hosting cpanel and change wp settings. Thanks
You can set your preference in Google Webmaster Tools by going to Dashboard > Tools > Set preferred domain and set your preferred domain to www. Then make sure your blog matches that in the WP control panel. You may also wish to set your .htaccess to force your domain to redirect www. with a 301. You shouldn't lose any serps with the 301 and telling Google you prefer www.
Thanks REP added. Done the first steps - not touched web hosting panel. With the redirect - i have an .htaccess file in root of www.hip-consultant.co.uk and one i believe in ../blog/ Have used one in root for fowarding changed urls in past but not touched ../blog/ at all. Which one should i use to redirect all pages in blog? Can i redirect all pages in hip-consultant.co.uk/blog/ to www.hip-consultant.co.uk/blog/ with one command? What would that be?
Just in case Try using this plugin for WP http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/enforce-www-preference/ I use it and works wonders.
Hi using WP2.5.1 read this post as seems there is conflict at minute http://wordpress.org/support/topic/173482 Is it worth doing in .htacess as per my previous post?
The conflict appears to apply only to the plugin "Enforce WWW" which you really don't need. Try using the function in your hosting account control panel which should be easy and it will modify your htaccess for you. Cpanel makes this very easy.
Not touched .htaccess just followed points ive mentioned. Not ouched cpanel. as main site was already www. blog was without. Site is displaying as i want. I have changed in wp and webmaster tools, submitted new site map. It is just whether i lose serps without redirect!!!??? How do i redirect all pages in hip-consultant.co.uk/blog directory. to www.hip-consultant.co.uk/blog cpanel??? Do i have to redirect eacch seperate blog page?
You don't have to redirect each page with the domain redirected. A look at your site shows that you have the redirect worked out. According to this thread http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=874951&highlight=duplicate+content+www+without your serps shouldn't change, but your page rank is focused on one page, not two. I haven't noticed a difference either way from changing it to www, but I like the consistency.
my serps are still showing without www though suppose it will take google a while to change this. Only change webmaster tools and in wp, was pretty easy though just hope i keep credits ive built up for pr as not been rated yet as new. Is it worth doing in .htaccess? as is redirecting ok?
Hi redsy, It looks like your blog control panel added the redirect to your htaccess file for you and everything is good. It will probably take Google 1-2 months to get the www in the results for all of your pages. I'm glad to see you have it worked out!