Should you use www. or without www.?
August 26th, 2007 by ChrisYour blog can be accessed either through www.yourblog.com or yourblog.com, how convenient it is! However, it also means that your blog has two different PageRanks. Go to SmartPageRank.com and see it for yourself. Google and other search engines often regard www.yourblog.com and yourblog.com as two different blogs, and therefore, some of the inbound links may point to www.yourblog.com and others to yourblog.com.
Example:
- www.rockyourvote.net has a PageRank of 4
- rockyourvote.net
has a PageRank of 2is having PageRank 4 now
People don’t always link to your domain in the way you want them to. From an SEO perspective, this could hurt your hard earned search engine rankings and link popularity. How to solve this not-many-people-know issue?
The best solution to this situation is to signal to search engines that both domains are the same blog/site by implementing what is known as ‘301 redirect’ or ‘permanent redirect’ from one of your domains to the other. By correctly configuring a permanent 301 redirect, the search engine rankings might improve as all inbound links are correctly counted for the website, thus, your PageRank is theoretically redirected too. It also helps to redirect your visitors to the domain that you want as well as to clear up duplicate content in search engines.
Before implementing a 301 redirect, you should decide which version you want it to be, www. or non-www, then stick to it. In my case, I chose the www. version. A 301 redirect can be done in many ways, but I’m going to only show you two simplest methods that I recommend:
- Using a Wordpress plugin
- Using htaccess
1. Setting up a 301 redirect using a Wordpress plugin
If your blog is on a Wordpress platform, you’re lucky! Justin Shattuck came up with a wonderful plugin called WWW Redirect plugin. This easy-to-use Wordpress plugin allows you to set up a 301 redirect few clicks away. Go to the plugin page here, download the plugin, extract and upload the file to your plugins folder, activate it in your Wordpress admin control panel, go to the ‘Redirect Options’ on the sub menu of the plugins menu and update your preferences. That’s all, you’re done. Your domain is now redirected to the other domain from now on. You can check your redirect validity on Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker
2. Setting up a 301 redirect using htaccess
For those on blogging platforms other than Wordpress, don’t be disappointed, you can still set up a 301 redirect using htaccess. Doing it using htaccess is highly recommended as it’s easier to manage – copy, paste and save. It’s also the safest method without having to worry about being penalized by search engines. In my case, by adding the redirect code to the .htaccess file on my server, I redirect my visitors to reach my blog at www.wiseblogging.com instead of wiseblogging.com, and below is how I did it.
The 301 permanent redirect code:
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^yourblog.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourblog.com/$1 [r=301,nc]
For Blue Host user
- Login to your Blue Host control panel
- Select ‘File Manager’ under ‘Files’ session
- Click on ‘.htaccess’ and select ‘Edit File’ and you will get the screen below
- Insert the redirect code into the field indicated, remember to replace ‘yourblog’ with your own domain and lastly save changes.
- Done. Your domain is redirected to the other domain from now on. You can check your redirect validity on Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker
For other web host user
If you are not a Blue Host user (advertisement : Reliable, Affordable Business Hosting from Bluehost.com.) , you should still be able to locate the same file ‘.htaccess’ on the root directory of your blog but if you can’t locate it, create one and name it ‘.htaccess’. Here’s how to do it:
- Open up your notepad or any text editor that you prefer
- Copy and paste the redirect code into the notepad, replace ‘yourblog’ with your own domain and lastly save it as ‘.htaccess’
- Upload it to the root directory of your blog and make sure the name remains as ‘.htaccess’
- Done. Your domain is redirected to the other domain from now on. You can check your redirect validity on Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker
If you have a relatively large blog, you will likely not see the big shakeup overnight, as it takes time to move your rankings and pass your PageRank, however, implementing the 301 redirect is definitely going to benefit your blog in the long run.
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