Google is picking up my site but unlike everyone elses they are indexing it without the www so it looks like mysite.com/page1.htm instead of www.mysite.com/page1.htm Does this matter? This is the first time this has happened to me. What did I do wrong this time? Will I get a duplication penalty?
Use webmaster central to set your preferred URL to www.yoursite.com Also, make sure you set up a .htaccess redirect from non www to www.
Have a read of this: http://www.socialpatterns.com/search-engine-marketing/cleaning-up-canonical-urls-with-redirects/
oh man...that site is nice! good info on all kinds of stuff...including videos of arbitrage! Thanks for the link. rep rep
Goto Google Webmaster Central and authenticate your website and choose preferred domain as www.domain.com
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^/]+/)*index\.php\ HTTP/ RewriteRule ^(([^/]+/)*)index\.php$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L] </IfModule> the first rule redirects non www to www and the second one redirects domain.com/index.php to domain.com
Is this hurting me though having the site indexed without the www? Does it really matter or is Google smart enough to realize that it is the same site?
Good info. Definately do a 301 from the non www to the www don't forget to do a 301 from the www.domain.com to www.domain.com/ the trailing slash can be a factor as well. in the google webmaster central you can set whether you want google to set the results as the www or not www.
As the original poster can anyone confirm my original question. Can this actually hurt your rankings? Is it fine to leave as it is?
Use your DNS control panel with your provider and add the www record (A record) You really want to be indexed with the www and without
the best way is redirecting without www option to with www option. add the code to your .htaccess file which is given above