Eventually, Google will figure out that they are the same site -- in the meantime, yes, contacting backlinks NOT using the www. version and asking them to change the links will help.
I think some of those PR5 and PR6 guys may be exaggerating a tad... can we set up a lie detector test in this thread?
Yeah, PR6 isn't really that hard to get, just involves a bit of persistence. You can see mine if you send a PM also.
I'm with the others: find a way to fix this so that we can vote our various sites individually. (Perhaps a number box for each PR value, instead of a check box). I have over a dozen sites, as: 6: 1 site 5: 3 sites 4: 5 sites 3: 2 sites 3 sites not checked (2 old & no longer really maintained, 1 new & scarcely there) But I only got one vote registered, for a PR5. The last update changed one site (a pro-bono one for a small town's museums) from 3 to 4, and one new one (the only one I'm actively working on right now) from 0 to 5; the rest were unaffected.
The easy, simple, reliable way to fix this without chasing after linking sites is--assuming you are hosted on an Apache-powered server (as most are)--to put a simple mod_rewrite directive in your .htaccess file to accomplish a 301-Redirect from the unwanted form to the wanted form. (It doesn't matter which you prefer--just pick one.) If you wanted to use the form without the leading www, you'd use these two lines: RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^mywonderfulsite.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*) http://mywonderful.com/$1 [L,R=301]Then, any call to the form http://www.mywonderfulsite.com (that is, to any page in it) will be redirected via a 301 "Permanently Moved" HTTP message to the same page at http://mywonderfulsite.com--moreover, the searchbots will make note of the 301 and will in future "credit" links to the www form as being to the non-www form. The only caveat is that while the redirects take instant effect when you change your .htaccess file, the link reassignment takes Google's own notoriously sweet time to eventually come into play. But it does get done, in the fullness of time. These directives handle all links, present and future, made to the "wrong" form.
It would be interesting to get to allow multiple choices for the same poll answer, not sure how useful it would be in many instances besides this one though.
Mental note to schlottke: start again and do it right so people will stop complaining... Seriously, though... look at the distribution emerging from this survey. In spite of the obvious sampling problems and small sample size, I bet it's not that far off for people who'd be reading a forum like this...
Hi Eric, Thanks for reminding me of the mod rewrite solution and also posting the code. I thought of that before but I was using front page and it seemed to screw up the front page extensions. I've since switched to Dreamweaver so that shoudln't be a problem. Had a little problem getting it to work. Had to add the RewriteEngine on command and slightly change your code to get it to work. Here's what I wound up using and it seems to be working fine. If anyone can see any "red flags" that might screw something up please let me know. RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301]