WWW and No WWW pages in Google
Go to your web browser’s address bar.
Check to see if your website can be seen with http://yourdomainname.com (without the www. and with the www)
If this is so then we have a problem!
Each website address points to a different IP address
Your website address points to two name server addresses for example
NS1.EXAMPLENAMESERVER.COM
NS2.EXAMPLENAMESERVER.COM
Each of these have their own IP addresses.
This means that Google and other search engines understand that there are two identical websites on different address one with the www and another without the www.
Google does not like duplicate content.
This can affect your site very negatively.
Have a look at how google.com treats the same situation.
Go to your address bar and type in http://google.com (without the www) then strike the Enter/Return on your keyboard.
You will notice that http://google.com (without the www.) automatically redirects to http://www.google.com (with the www.)
Please note: Some websites choose the domain name without the www as the only one they use – this normally depends on what system or script they are running their website on.
It is important that you choose one of the addresses and stick with it.
WHAT CAN HAPPEN?
If for whatever reason you or another website links to your domain name without the www in the url (website address) Google will follow the address without the www and start indexing some of your web pages with and others without the www.
This means that your web pages will actually be split in Google’s index between two identical domains (yours) and you will loose most of your onsite web optimization.
To check if your website has been “hit” like this you can go to Google and search
site:yourdomainname.com and site:www.yourdomainname.com You will have to go through all the pages that are indexed and find out if your some web pages are indexed without and some with the www.
PLEASE NOTE:- If your website is not affected by this yet that it could happen at any time – it is very frustrating and sometimes can take a long time to get rid of this problem.
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HTACCESS TO GET RID OF THE NON WWW AND WWW PROBLEM - NOT FOR WINDOWS SERVERS – ONLY FOR UNIX OR LYNUX SERVERS.
STEP 1
Open a .txt file in notepad.
STEP 2
Paste the four lines below into the text file.
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(.*)\.yourdomainname\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomainname.com/$1 [R=301,L]
STEP 3
Replace “yourdomainname” with your domain name.
STEP 4
If you have another domain extension other than .com change the .com in two places.
STEP 5
Save the file as htaccess.txt
STEP 6
Upload the file in ASCII to the root of your server.
STEP 7
Rename the file to .htaccess (Place the “.” dot infront and remove the .txt at the end.
This video covers a wide range of on-site seo issues – have a pen and paper handy to make notes.
http://www.freddiecervaseo.com/seo-answers/on-site-seo-video/
