Duplicate Domains - Using “www” with your domain
Duplicate content is currently one of the largest problems on the Internet right now. In some way duplicate content affects you and if you are doing any online website marketing, this can really slow your campaign.
There are many places that we encounter duplicate content:
- old websites addresses that still display your website
- content on other websites that have stolen it from you
- and much more.
One of the most common versions of duplicate content comes when you actually have duplicate domains, I know, this doesn’t sound possible but it is. When your website hosting was setup, there is a good chance that the server will display your domain with and without the ‘www’ in the path (see below).
- www.yourdomain.com
- yourdomain.com
If you can do this and an exact version of your website comes up under both domain structures, then you have duplicate content.
This duplicate content issue needs to be fixed and it is actually not that hard to do. Install this simple script in your .htaccess file on your server:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]
* Note - be sure and replace “yourdomain.com” with the URL of your website.
This should be a simple little copy and paste that will save us a lot of problem in the long run.
Trevor Walter - Freelance Marketing Group, Inc.