google seeing site as 2 different sites with and without www?

I have recently re-launched my website, after having it directing to
another site for quite a while. The domain name has been active
online since '98. When the webmaster re-launched last month he has it
showing as ___.com as opposed to www.___.com ....which I now see
from google webmaster tools they are showing as 2 different sites.
The www.___.com now shows no information yet it shows 175 external
links which are links that people have had on their sites for years,
and ___.com shows that it is being indexed, but shows no external
links ...

My webmaster does not seem to understand this so I am seeking help
from anyone that may have more knowledge about this because it has me
completely confused. I don't want to make any more changes until I
understand this more. Do I just get him to switch the name back to
www or will I get penalized for the changes? Thanks. ALS

 

Hi Als,

If you are using webmaster tools for your site - you have the option of telling google which version you prefer (with www or without www). It's obviously not instant - but it will work towards solving the problem. Have you tried this already?

Dylan

 

We were trying to figure out if we should go back to the www or stay with the one we have now without. The www shows all the external links that link to me which is from the original site, and the present url is now being indexed but shows I have no links to me, and still shows cache, and info from site that it was forwarded to for a couple of years. I am not a techie so this is hard for me to get a handle on, and my webmaster does not seem to have the answer ... so I thought I would try these forums. thanks. Amy

 

I have my webtools set to the without the www preference. I also 301 redirected www to without www for the SEO/PR goodnesss.

 

I do the same as Volvospeed. Set the preference to www. and use the .htacess file on the server for the 301 redirect to the www. version.

 

Yep, www after all is a subdomain of your domain. Just make a redirect with .htaccess.

 

Good tip. Is there anywhere good to read up on htaccess and what miracles it can do for SEO?

 

.htaccess is the backbone of public *nix based operating systems. Any book would cover it. Hard to point just one article on such a broad subject.

 

There is some info. and relevant links here:

www.seoco.co.uk/blog/2007/08/22/google-indexing-and-301-redirect-nightmares/

 

Make sure that you also redirect to only one of them using .htaccess.

 

Hello,

Use in your .htaccess. file this code

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^YOURDOMAIN\.com [nc]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Best,
Jakomo

 

i strongly suggest you to arrange www or without www option from your google webmaster tools and you must als redirect without www option to with www option

 

you have a canonical issue

 

trichnosis. why would we redirect to the www as opposed the without? I have received conflicting opinions about this.

 

I don't think it matters either way.

The important thing is to resolve the canonical issue.

 

Thanks. We have made the adjustments. Amy

 

Go with the .htaccess using the level 301 redirection to pass all the page rank and inform search engines it's will be redirected to the specific choice and index the new pages, And set the preferred domain in your Google web master tools as well.

 

301 redirection is the way to correct this