Forum Moderators: phranque
[code]RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [R=301,L][/code]
My primary reason for this was marketing. I have standardized all catalogs, business cards, and other promotional material to leave off the [b]www[/b]. It makes your URL shorter and easier to communicate.
[1][[b]edited by[/b]: heini at 12:11 pm (utc) on Dec. 25, 2003][/1]
[1][edit reason] delinked, thanks! [/edit][/1]
most servers are set up for this already. years ago you had to set it up so that it would work without the www, now that is pretty much standard. I doubt if you domain is visible to domain.com without being visible to www.domain.com
luck and joy,
robert
Reinforcing the branding effort bill describes by redirecting from the undesired domain to the preferred domain is a very good reason. This affects both site visitors and search engines. Only by doing the 301 redirect can you control what your URL looks like in the browser address bar and in search results.
If you don't control this aspect of your domain, then the search engines will just pick one variant over the other, sometimes based on incoming links and sometimes seemingly at random.
In certain market segments, branding is a powerful tool; For example, do you check "www.cnn.com" in the morning, or "cnn.com"?
So control it yourself or let others decide, it's up to you... Where *my* livlihood is involved, I prefer to take control. YMMV
Jim
I'd like to know, however, if anyone else has noticed if this slows down page requests? Seems like going to www.mydomain.com takes longer now that the redirect is in place than it used to.
<edit>Might just be my imagination; I just checked again and there didn't seem to be so much difference. Input anyone?</edit>
Thanks,
Matthew
if this slows down page requests
301 redirects are quite fast, and since the only time people should get the redirect is when they first enter your site, it should be fine.
This means that if a user visits your site, likes it and links to it, he/she will mostly likely copy the URL out of the browser. So, this reduces the chance of being listed as both www.domain.com and domain.com, which effectively can split-up a search engine's count on these links.
However, because search engines do not like redirects, this could cancel out any link credibility for the www.domain.com (pre-existing or future links) in a search engine.
And I would probably enforce the reverse conversion (from domain.com to www.domain.com) over the other way around to avoid people who may link to your site out of memory simply because it has become such a standard.
Then again, are .htaccess redirects frowned on as much as vanity domain forwards/redirects (mydomain.com or www.mydomain.com forwards to domain.com)? This, I am unsure of. Afterall, with such an htaccess redirect, doesn't http://www.domain.com/dir/file.html redirect to http://domain.com/dir/file.html?
If the answer is yes, then this is probably is a great strategy because existing links to any insite address won't be broken. But I am still under the impression that htaccess is frowned on by the search engines.
However, if you do this from the outset when you are just starting the website, there should be no worries about existing links and a possible reduction in link popularity.
Of course, I am open to opinions/suggestions/rebuttal. My only concern is how such a strategy might effect link popularity. The upside is that you are increasing brand/URL recognition, which of course, may (and usually should) outwiegh any possible link popularity issues.
-DP
[1][[b]edited by[/b]: heini at 12:08 pm (utc) on Dec. 25, 2003][/1]
[1][edit reason] delinked, thanks! [/edit][/1]
When an SE sees a 301 redirect, it should drop the old page and index the new one instead. If that's what you mean by not liking redirects, then yes, but since redirects let you eliminate duplicate content, they should be considered good things.
As for vanity domains with redirections, I think they're pretty useless, except for type-in traffic. The SE's will abandon them, and most users will bookmark the url that shows up in the browser.
I'd say that search engines much prefer redirects, rather than duplicate pages.
Afterall, with such an htaccess redirect, doesn't htt*://www.domain.com/dir/file.html redirect to htt*://domain.com/dir/file.html?Yes, that's the way it works. You don't lose any existing links that way, your visitors are simply redirected to the proper URL.
Jim
When an SE sees a 301 redirect, it should drop the old page and index the new one instead. If that's what you mean by not liking redirects, then yes, but since redirects let you eliminate duplicate content, they should be considered good things.
No, actually I am really refering to Domain redirects, there. Google does not like duplicate sites. Some people will buy an expired Domain Name that is still producing traffic and will redirect that Domain to their own, as another example. Usually, when Google gets wind of this, the redirected site is dropped in the listings even if the traffic producing (previously expired) Domain still produces traffic. The upshot of this is that usually the traffic decreases steadily as links are corrected and users don't find the information they expect. The webmaster then sells the traffic domain before it's utterly useless.
Another example is to have another Domain parked on top of a company's main site. Once Google realizes that it is indexing identical content on two Domains it will drop the most recent submission. SEO's talk webmasters into doing this all the time, to sell a keyword rich domain. This is actually OK, if the company and SEO both realize that they then have to drop the older (company name) domain name in the SE listings. Google would eventually see such a site as a dupe and never allow the new keyword rich Domain any listing. And even while Google doesn't catch the dupe (or "mirror") site, you wind-up competing against yourself for the very same keywords anyway, diluting your edge.
Well, I digress, but that's what I meant by SE's frowning on redirects. And that is why I am very glad to hear that .htaccess redirects work out well. ;-)
As for vanity domains with redirections, I think they're pretty useless, except for type-in traffic. The SE's will abandon them, and most users will bookmark the url that shows up in the browser.
I agree wholeheartedly. However, I do like type-in traffic. And this is when a Domain redirect works, when it is NOT in the search engines, but directs traffic through one or two commonly used keywords. And because the user bookmarks the resulting site (if he/she likes) it becomes a big win. But, to be effective, it has to be targetted traffic.
Still, type-ins only generate 3-6 visitors per month (unless you are on to something hot that hasn't already been picked-up). And you have to be careful and only chose well used keywords which are usually all used up, with no hyphen, for the type-in traffic Domain. But, Domains are so cheap these days, it can be worth the gamble.
This is, as you can see, why I was unsure about the htaccess redirects and I thank you all for straightening me out there. This tip is excellent information for me and I thank you all for your posts, because it also encourages and endorses branding, which typically does not work well with most SEO work.
Merry Christmas! -DP (SymbioticDesign)
thanks,
robert
This is a big plus because it helps reduce the possibility one guy linking to www.foo.com and and another guy who links to foo.com. Since search engines see the www.foo.com and foo.com URLs as 2 distinctly different addresses, it reduces the possibility of people splitting up your link popularity.
But I think the main point made was the most important one, It also promotes branding by making one address prominent. Furthermore, foo.com is a more rememberable address as opposed to www.foo.com, which bleeds into the usual lot of websites.
I think that covers it. But if I didn't explain it well, please re-read the topic, it's all there, and very good info. ;-)
-SymbioticDesign
