I was curious on how to make a website go from example.com to www.example.com without using a redirect script on the html page.
When users type in the domain without using www, some of the javascript does not work.
I have seen plenty of sites have it the way i am trying to do it.
Is it something in my DNS that i need to set so no matter if they type in the example.com without the www it goes to www.example.com. Thanks.
[edited by: Webwork at 1:40 am (utc) on Feb. 19, 2006]
[edit reason] Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]
It's a question best addressed to your hosting company as the answer is based, in large measure, on the O/S of the server that is hosting your website.
Basically, the server has to be configured by making settings that redirect http requests for www.example.com to example.com.
when users type in the domain without using www, some of the javascript does not work
Your problem is most likely not related to redirects, and wouldn't be fixed by anything you could do with redirects or DNS.
It sounds to me like you have some absolute URLs on your site.
Unless you are referring to an external site, NEVER use your domain name in a URL within your own site.
Use:
/articles/creepy_ice_cream.html
Not:
example.com/articles/creepy_ice_cream.html
Or:
www.example.com/articles/creepy_ice_cream.html
The first form is self-referential to the current web site. The other two are going to go to the exact domain name given regardless of anything you do with redirection.
[webmasterworld.com...]
...Unless you are referring to an external site, NEVER use your domain name in a URL within your own site. Use: /articles/creepy_ice_cream.html Not:
example.com/articles/creepy_ice_cream.html Or: www.example.com/articles/creepy_ice_cream.html
Why? Strongly disagree with that for several reasons with the most important being I believe your own link within your own site counts toward link popularity, which results in more traffic and higher positioning in the search engines (been there, done that).
Another likely benefit is if your page or content is stolen, framed or hijacked IMO an absolute link can be a benefit too (been there, done that).
We are now in the process of changing old relative links to absolute links when we run across them while editing sites.
if your page or content is stolen, framed or hijacked IMO an absolute link can be a benefit too
This will help with the most lame of hijackers.
However, this is easily defeated.
Site download tools, such as <guess I can't mention the name>, fix-up absolute references so that they are local.
As a practical matter, if somebody is going to snarf your whole site, or any significant portion of it, they are going to have to use such a tool.
(I use this when traveling. I can download an entire site or section of a site about my destination, and view it on my notebook without an Internet connection.)
I can't imagine that absolute references help with search engine rankings. The search engine can follow local links just as well as absolute links. And, surely, they are smart enough to normalize all the links, and know which ones are local and which ones are off-site, regardless of whether they use local or absolute reference.
Absolute references to local pages are just bad form.
A way to test this would be to edit your page adding say 10 links using both methods and then check link:domainnamedotcom a few days after the site is crawled and see if you have 10 new links. It sure would be great if Googleguy would address the issue (if he is still hanging around here).
