SpiderSavvyBuilding The Web

4th January 2010
Posted in Best Practices, Search Engine Optimization, Usability
Tagged in: .htacess, 301-redirect

When you type in a URL do you enter www.website.com or just website.com?

Both should take should take you to the same place. If not there is a problem! Personally, I don’t want to type in the ‘www’ and I don’t really see the need for it.  For example, when I go to SpiderSavvy.com or JamesMcWhorter.com I don’t type in www.

This brings me to an important SEO and usability tip that is often overlooked in sites with regards to those who find your site by typing ‘www’ before the domain name. Search engines may think spidersavvy.com and www.spidersavvy.com are two different sites. To avoid dillution of your Web site’s SEO you should set up a permanent redirect (technically called a “301 redirect”) between these sites. Once you do that, you will get full search engine credit for your work on these sites.

It works like this.  When you enter www.SpiderSavvy.com the redirect will automatically take you to http://SpiderSavvy.com.  This effectively funnels all traffic through one place instead of two or more.

This can be done by finding the .htaccess file, on your Web site, and entering:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.*) [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*) http://%1/$1 [R=301]