WWW versus non WWW version of Site

[Boogalou_007]

I'm new to site building and would really appreciate some advice.

I've heard that if you allow both a www.mysite.com and a mysite.com version to exist at the same time you can be penalized for duplicate content. When I first published my site via Frontpage, I published to mysite.com Recently I stated publishing to www.mysite.com. At the time I thought it was the same thing. I'm still confused as to the difference. Does it matter which address you publish to?

When I do a search on google 75 pages show up for the non www version while 52 show up for the www version. The site is about a month old. The PR for both is the same.

When I publish to my hosting company, whether I type the www.mysite.com or mysite.com it goes to the same place right? Does it matter at all?

If anyone would be willing to shed some light on this or point me towards some reading material I'd really appreciate it.

Boog

[the27offsuit.com]

good question, id like to know also,

add in with http:// and non http://

[PPP]

It's extremely important. You should make sure you only use either the www or non-www.

It's a long thing to explain, but you should do the work to fix this. Displaying duplicate content is bad and can get you penalized, and of course splitting pagerank makes no sense at all.

You should 301 redirect either your non-www to the www or vice versa, then make sure all your linking is consistent.

(The issue has nothing to do with publishing the site, but rather how the site is displayed and linked.)

[Boogalou_007]

Originally posted by PPP@Sep 11 2005, 03:55 PM
It's extremely important. You should make sure you only use either the www or non-www.

It's a long thing to explain, but you should do the work to fix this. Displaying duplicate content is bad and can get you penalized, and of course splitting pagerank makes no sense at all.

You should 301 redirect either your non-www to the www or vice versa, then make sure all your linking is consistent.

(The issue has nothing to do with publishing the site, but rather how the site is displayed and linked.)

Thanks for the info PPP.

I emailed my my web host and they said the redirect is done automatically I think that's their way of saying, "Leave us alone stupid newb."

I use frontpage, my web hosts servers are Linux with Apache, whatever that means.

Don't suppose you could point me in the right direction to where I could find the code I need to re-direct? It's just a few simple lines I'd enter in the heading of each page right?

Thanks a bunch!

Boog

[PPP]

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum92/3478-2-30.htm

[Boogalou_007]

Originally posted by PPP@Sep 11 2005, 08:18 PM
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum92/3478-2-30.htm

Thanks again PPP!

I read that entire thread several times and was just about to go buy a book on Apache when luckily I found an option on my website panel that will auto re-direct any page I enter.

If I you would be willing to answer just a couple more question I'll shut up.

I would need to use that option for every single page in my site correct? Just using it on the main page wouldn't be enough? Also, the fact that google has indexed 75 pages for the non www, and 52 for the www version, does that mean I've screwed myself with the search engines?

Thanks!!!

Boog

[PPP]

If you do it by single page you would have to do it for each page.

You can do it easily for the whole domain if you follow the instructions in the thread.

Having the 75/52 is bad, but there is no way to say how much damage is done (if any) or how long it would take to fix it by putting a redirect on.

[Boogalou_007]

Thanks PPP, appreciate the help.