Forum Moderators: martinibuster
My rankings at 2 of the big 3 SE's have improved and my AS revenue has shot up in the last few days. I haven't made any other changes that might account for it on my end. I realize that the engines are always tweaking and that many other variables are in constant flux as well. But hey, I'm a believer in the 301 "fix" now!
I'm sure someone here more technically proficient can give you more details, but here is the code I added to my sites' .htaccess files:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [domain.com...] [R=301,L]
What os the point of redirecting to www?
is exactly the same
I think that is the whole point! If the same content can be accessed using two different URLs, you may get a duplicate content penalty. Also, if some people link to the www version of your site and others link to the non-www version, your "PR benefits" would be "split" over two "different" sites. (At least, I think that's the theory behind it. I wasn't sure that it would really make a difference, but Swebbie says it has worked for him --good to hear that!)
The problem then arises when index.html is the same document on both the domain and the subdomain. This is, in essence, duplicate content.
Assume that you have a domain, widgets.com. Now you want to create a subdomain for red wigets, blue widgets, and so on. You would end up with red.widgets.com, blue.widgets.com... Surely you would not put the same index page on all of those subdomains? Well, the same is true for www and non-www. The distinction is just a bit more subtle.
A project for the not-so-faint-hearted would be to create uniquely different content for www and non-www. Of course, this now leads to confusion for the users, who typically understand even less of this than I do... (maybe)
Also, if some people link to the www version of your site and others link to the non-www version, your "PR benefits" would be "split" over two "different" sites.
That's the other big issue, yes (besides the duplication issue). Once you implement the 301, it's a good investment of time to contact all the places you find that link to your site and make sure they use the same URL path. The 301 will "fix" the problem from the standpoint of your site visitors and the SE spiders, but you'll still have links out there pointing to the "wrong" URL. Get that fixed and you should see ranking improvements (all other things being equal). At least, that's been my experience, as far as I can ascertain.
i have 5 servers,
www. www2. www3. www4. www5.
when you visit the site, the load balancer decides what server to put you on. this is the way my site has been operating for couple years.. guess what? no problem..
And if I 301 redirect the non-www will that increase PR of my www version?
301 means: this page has moved (permanently) to a new location; so it would make sense if the "PR-votes" for the *old* location (non-www) would now be counted as votes for the *new* location.
In other words, the SE *should* start treating incoming backlinks to non-www as links to www.
just a bunch of hype that a redirect will earn you more $$
Like I said at the beginning, there are many variables that affect rankings and site revenue. It was very simple to implement the 301 code, and a few weeks later I'm earning more without any other major changes on my end. Higher rankings on some major kw's too at 2 of the 3 major engines. If, as you say, it's "just a bunch of hype" that a redirect helps the bottom line, I'm ok with that. I did it and my income rose. That's not necessarily a sign of cause-and-effect, but as long as the effect part happens, who really cares?
if you had links coming from with and without www. you'll see much less results in search engines.
since we have many servers each with a "different" domain name we see 5x the results in search engine.
example, if i am searching for "hotels" www may not be listed as indexed in the search engine, but www2 and www3 is shown as indexed. so if i hadn't have these domains the search term might have never been indexed until the link was found somewhere.
its not counted as duplicate content. now if i had:
www.domain.com/page
and
www.domain.com/page2
.. both with the same content then yes you could be penalize, but its seen as two different sites when you use www or not.
I setup a 301 over 2 months ago and I see no real improvement because of it...What you really need to do is find people linking to the old/other URL and get them to change it, and Google confirmed this with me...That's the only way you'll truly preserve the rank....
It's easier said then done to, many people aren't ready to go out of their way to help increase someone elses PR.
301 doesn't help transfer pagerank
What a 301 does is make it much more likely that IBL's you get from the moment you do the 301 going forward will be to the URL version you chose when you set up the 301. Visitors will only ever see the "correct" URL path of each page, making the links you garner from then on much less likely to be split between the www and non-www versions. That will definitely boost your PR over time.
Also, I used to find both versions of my site's pages in the major engines. Now I find only the www version in almost every case. Add the fact that I've seen an improvement in rankings for some of the main KW's for my sites since doing the 301. It took all of 5 minutes to add the redirect to the htaccess file. I've spent much more time on this thread than it took to make this simple change. So if it only contributed a tiny bit to my higher rankings, it was very much worth the time I spent. And if it didn't do bupkiss for my rankings, I'm sure I've wasted a lot more time on other issues that also didn't help.
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [domain.com...] [R=301,L]
Do i go to my c panel somewhere or I enter it somewhere in my html code or? indno
paste that code in a text file. name the file ".htaccess"
Notice that the file name has a long extention (after the ".") but does not have a name before the extention.
As to where to put that file (after you have pastd the code in it, and saved it with the exact name above), you put it in the root folder of your web site. That is, together in the same folder where you put the main index.html file of your stie.
Cheers