its driving me nuts, either im stupid, or im getting older alot faster then i used to. cant even seem to get any smarter by reading SEO guides. my webhost.. gives me 2 options, install a wordpress on either http://www.domain.com or http://domain.com now... i want a 301 redirect to www.domain.com so question is: is domain.com the same as http://domain.com ? and if http://domain.com is the same as domain.com, does that mean http://www.domain.com is the same as www.domain.com? if http://domain.com is the same as domain.com, does that mean i can use both without a redirect ? see?. i even got you confused.. allright, you are allowed to call me newbie etc, but only after you answer me this headache of a quiestion.
Without http:// and with it is the same, the only difference is between domains that starts in www. and domains that not, and yes you can use both without redirect
Don't worry about http://, imagine it does not exist. However, do worry about www vs non-www. Whether the users type in www.sitename or sitename, they will still reach your site no problem. But, to Google, those are 2 different pages, and it's goona index them both. Just to avoid internal duplicate content issues (Google sees these as 2 identical pages having different URLs) and to steer all your link juice all to one URL, it's better if you set up a redirect. You can either redirect your sitename to www.sitename (recommended), or vice versa. That depends on which URL currently has more backlinks. Also, it is not advisable to solve this particular canonicalization issue via a rel="canonical" tag, but rather with a 301 redirect.
thank guys, altho i fear ill never understand why google just dont just implement redirects themselvs, (which they said they might do sometime) ..in the meanwhile, thanks for clearning it up
One thing to note: the chances of a site being hurt by duplicate content because of www and non-www is miniscule. Ive seen it happen one time so far, in 10 years of doing websites/seo. However, you do want to make sure when people link to your site that all the value is directed to the proper version of your site.
What Google does is not redirecting, but canonicalization, that is, picking one URL out of a group of similar URLs to represent in the search results. They call such similar-looking URLs DUST (different URL similar text). So, Google has an algorithm that lets it group URLs in DUST groups, and then, out of each group only one URL goes into the search results.
Hey, Well As per user point of view website like domain(dot)com, www(dot)domain(dot)com, www(dot)domain(dot)com/index(dot)html, domain(dot)com/index(dot)html all are same website. You and me knows this but Google and other search engine won't. They take them as four different website and with four different URL's and same content and linking. Why Harmful? 1. Website considered as 4 different sites and have same content - Copy Content Penalization 2. Backlink target to either of 4 sites and you do not have exact information how many back links you have for your website. 3. Indexing also effects 4. Page Rank do effects and traffic might divide among 4 sites(traffic not actually divert but we don't have information at which URL traffic is actually coming). However they are one but you don not have exact information of exact traffic. Solutions: 1. Permanent redirect to exact url: www(dot)domain(dot)com only, 301 redirect in .htaccess file 2. canonical Meta - <link rel="canonical" href="www(dot)domain(dot)com" /> . put it in <head> section </head> of website. 3. Use Google Webmaster and set preferred URL to www(dot)domain(dot)com - Do remember to verify it.
They will do it once you will notify them in your site Google webmaster tools saying non www and www pages are same and set a priority there either www or non www. .