http://www.mywebsite.com has PageRank 3/10. http://mywebsite.com has PageRank 4/10. I just remove the www. and my site becomes PR4 Can anyone clear this up for me?
Sure. You have more and/or higher PR links pointing to http://mywebsite.com than to http://www.mywebsite.com - the solution is to use uniform linking (usually the http://www.mywebsite.com format) in all internal links and backlinks. You can also use mod_rewrite if you really care that much about Toolbar PR - funnel http://mywebsite.com to http://www.mywebsite.com to consolidate the PR.
Great, thanks for the information Minstrel. Actually, would you be able to tell me how set up the mod rewrite? I already have a .htaccess file.
I use this RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.5nz\.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://5nz.com/$1 [L,R=301] Code (markup): test it: http://www.5nz.com
I don't really think it matters too much, a lot of users actually skip the the www part.... well the lazy ones anyways
Every site should do the redirect. Duplicate content is bad for both SE and users. I hate having images in local browser cache two times just because I am lazy to type the www manually. Not talking about stored passwords and eventually cookies.
Its nothing to do with users - as long as the site loads then they are happy. Having one version of your pages helps concentrate your links towards the right place and helps with your rankings. Use the htaccess tip posted above to solve this and make sure all your links point to the right place.
Except that for some resaon Sarah redirects http://www.5nz.com to http://5nz.com -- I'd do it the other way 'round.
Its amazing how often this comes up. I posted the following code in this thread yesterday. RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.html\ HTTP/ RewriteRule ^index\.html$ http://www.domain.co.uk [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.co.uk RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] Code (markup):
seemed unbelievable when i read, but happened with my site too. Without www, it has PR 0 and with the same it has 4. I would also follow this link for getting some explanations.