Canonical issue or not?

[hariram]

This website is opening with http://www.example.com/ and http://example.com/ so any one please suggest me this is canonical issue or not. if possible please also tell me what is canonical issue with example. I will be many thankful if any one suggest or solve my issue and problem.

Thanks,
Hariram

[edited by: phranque at 6:55 am (utc) on Jul 18, 2013]
[edit reason] exemplified domain [/edit]

[htmlbasictutor]

To fix this issue you need to:
1. Pick which version of the url you want to promote.
2. 301 redirect the version not being used to the one you chose.

The way you have it right now the site can be accessed with or without the www in front. If you leave it like this any incoming links pointing to your pages will be spread between the www and non www versions. To maximize the incoming links to a page you need to set things up so only one version of the page is accessible by everyone, including the search bots.

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld, hariram!


here's an extensive discussion which covers many of the issues involved.
once you decide on a canonical hostname, your technical solution will depend on what server you are using.
301 Redirects, www and Non-www - Google SEO News and Discussion forum:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/30274.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[lucy24]

Psst! Phranque! Come back!

No matter what you choose to do and how you choose to do it, one thing is sure: It can't be done in html :) So this is either an SEO question or an Apache question. Or, uh, That Other Server.

Rock-bottom easiest fix: If you are on shared hosting, putter around the control panel and find the "preferred domain name" setting. It won't be an optimal redirect, but at least it can start happening right away, while you take your time figuring out the ideal way to do it.

[rexjohnson]

Its a kind of canonical issues, because your site should be open in either www or non-www format so fixed it for all page of your site. Means all page should be opened in either of this format.

[lucy24]

The foregoing would be more intelligible if the meaning of "should be opened" were absolutely unambiguous.

Yes, every page of your site should be accessible to visitors who start out using the wrong protocol. But any given page should be redirected to one protocol or the other. In this respect it's exactly analogous to domain-name canonicalization, with or without www.

[g1smd]

You have a building with multiple entrances. Rather than leave every door open, only one should open and each of the others should show a sign stating which one to use.

[lucy24]

An even better analogy may be a building with labeled entrances: Staff vs. Customers, or Men vs. Women. There's more than one way in, but any given visitor is only allowed to use one door.

[pixelz]

If your website is being opened without www, it means you don't have a canonical tag on it. Its simple to do. Just add the below given code in head section of your website's homepage.

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/" />

[g1smd]

That only helps the root, and it doesn't stop the proliferation of new links to the wrong version as the browser address bar can still show the "wrong" version (which people then cut and paste elsewhere). The site-wide redirect fixes those problems for every page.