URL canonicalization - www and no www

[Philiboy]

Hi,

I notice that for my site I can type either wwww dot mysite dot co dot uk or mysite dot co dot uk and (unlike my competitors) one does not redirect to the other. I am aware of canonicalization but I am not sure if I need to take any action or just not worry about it (as I know I do not have duplicate sites).

If I need to take action, what do you guys advise me to do?


Thanks

[tedster]

First, read Why Does Google Treat "www" & "no-www" As Different? [webmasterworld.com]

Then pick which version you want as your canonical version and create the 301 redirect rule. I'd see which way Google has indexed most of your site and go with that choice. Trying to force a change might disrupt your traffic for a while.

[Philiboy]

I'm not sure if it makes sense to do a 301 redirect when it's one and the same website i.e. the IP address for www dot mysite dot co dot uk is same as mysite dot co dot uk (which I have just proved to myself by pinging each domain). This is what makes me think that perhaps no action is required. Or is it a case of placing <link rel="canonical" href= etc. etc. in the header of each page so that google knows whether the www dot version (or the other) is the preferred version (though, actually, as I say, there is only in effect one website / one IP address).

[tedster]

A rel="canonical" link is a good back-up plan, but the 301 redirect is the first level of action. Members here have been saying so for years and recently Google's Matt Cutts also said the same.

Redirects point from one URL to another URL and it is a valid action whether the two URL are on the same domain and IP or not.

[Philiboy]

OK, I've got it now. Thanks tedster. It is confusing because I wanted to avoid a redundant instruction of www dot to be redirected to www dot (or without www to be redirected to without www), but now see that the redirect rule can be expressed in a conditional way so the redirect is only attempted when there is a conflict with the preferred url.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Also, you can set your preferred version (www or non-www) through Google webamaster tool, once you have done the redirect.

[g1smd]

It is important to realise that Google indexes URLs, not "IPs" and not "sites".

Each different URL returning the same content with "200 OK" status is a Duplicate.

Be aware that pages from your site could also turn up as www.example.com:80/somepage and example.com:80/somepage too.

You'd also want to redirect those.

See also: [webmasterworld.com...]