Different PageRanks for same site?

www.<domain>.com vs just <domain>.com

[vich1]

This is very strange. I have a website which shows up in Google as http://example.net . When I follow that link to my site it has PageRank of 4. If I go to http://www.example.net the page rank is 0 even though it's the same site/page!

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Vic

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 5:56 am (utc) on May 11, 2003]
[edit reason] generic links [/edit]

[msr986]

Technically URL's with the 'www' and without the 'www' are two different URL's. Someone must be linking to your site without the 'www'. You may be able to correct this using modRewrite with a permanent redirect.

BTW, Welcome to WebmasterWorld, check out the Welcome Post [webmasterworld.com]. (and don't feel bad when a mod snips your URL, URL posting is against the Terms Of Service)

[Jenstar]

I had the same thing happen to me, and it sorted itself out at the next update. I have heard about people makes modifications to the .htaccess file to redirect the non-www version of the domain to the www.domain.com version.

[bill]

For one site I redirect all
www.mydomain.com/whateverpage.html
requests to
mydomain.com/whateverpage.html
using the following lines in my .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}!^mydomain\.com 
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://mydomain.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

[pawel]

isn't it that www.domain.com is always a subdomain of domain.com and google should always rank pages from the same domain the same way?

[vich1]

Bill,

Why do you redirect

www.mydomain.com/whateverpage.html
requests to
mydomain.com/whateverpage.html

instead of

mydomain.com/whateverpage.html
requests to
www.mydomain.com/whateverpage.html

Thanks,

Vic

[vich1]

Bill,

Why do you redirect

www.mydomain.com/whateverpage.html
requests to
mydomain.com/whateverpage.html

instead of

mydomain.com/whateverpage.html
requests to
www.mydomain.com/whateverpage.html

Thanks,

Vic

[webfut]

I have had this same problem and was basically told on another forum that the next Google dance will take care of this. I am not convinced as I first noticed this two dances ago. I know, I know patience. I guess I will just have to wait and pump more money into AdWords. Meanwhile I will keep reading to try to find an solution and help Google see just one of my sites. I don't want Google to think I have mirrored my content.

My host says that they have a server side redirect on the www.mydomain.com link to the domain.com link, but why doesn't Google see this and just link to one?

I do feel relieved though, that I am not losing my mind, and that someone else has the same problem!

Laura

[msr986]

webfut,

On the WebmasterWorld 'control panel' look for the link labeled 'Server Headers'. Use this tool for your URL with and without the 'www'. If one URL is redirecting to the other, you sould see something like '301 Moved Permanently' in the result. This is the type of redirect that tells Google that the URL's are the same. Hope that helps!

vich1,

I beleive it's a matter of preference. I redirect mydomain.com to www.mydomain.com

pawel,

www.mydomain.com and mydomain.com are different URL's and may contain completely different content. Google properly treats them as different URL's

[webfut]

I really appreciate your help. Sure enough there is no redirect set up, so I have requested the host to fix this ASAP.

By the way, I could not find the tool you mentioned but did find it with a search using the term "header". Here is the url to that great tool
[searchengineworld.com...]

You are a life saver. This forum is wonderful!

Laura

[bill]

Bill,

Why do you redirect

www.mydomain.com/whateverpage.html
requests to
mydomain.com/whateverpage.html

instead of

mydomain.com/whateverpage.html
requests to
www.mydomain.com/whateverpage.html

You could do it either way. I prefer the shorter URL and that's the way I market that site. All printed material (business cards, catalogs, posters, etc.) use that shorter URL.

This also make your logs cleaner. You don't get log entries for the same page with www and without www.

www seems outdated and no longer necessary to me. Your server should work the same whether you use www or not. By using .htaccess I simply force people to use my URL the way I want.