Help! www and non-www urls are driving me mad!
-
Sorry folks, I'm a very recently joined member, and after a five year gap in creating websites, I've decided to get back into the saddle and start again.
Boy how things have changed!
I'm soaking up all sorts of information from everywhere I can to get up to date with these changes, but I've come across this www v non-www problem in a big way.
I realise there are already posts in here about this, but each time I read them, my mind seems to slip into some sort of loop that does not get anywhere.
Basically, I think Google has indexed most of my pages as non-www, and only a hadful as www's.
I have opened two accounts in Google Webmaster Tools for both www and non-www, and declared my preference for both accordingly. That was two days ago.
As unprofessional as it may sound, I use Serif Web Plus X6, simply beacause it did the job six years ago, and it's all I know until I find and teach myself something better.
My question is this - I can only create one page on X6, and yet there are two versions indexed in Google (although not all of them). I can only amend the one page that exists in X6, so how do I canonicalize two pages when there's the only version I have access to amending? Or am I miissing the point???
I hope that made sense?!
I wouldn't mind, but I specified that I didn't want the site to be indexed yet with 'no follow', as it's nowhere near finished, but for some reason (probably due to placing Adsense ads on there) Google went ahead and indexed it anyway!
The site is either http://www.cushioncutengagementringsstore.com or http://cushioncutengagementringsstore.com, depending on how you look at it!
Any light you can shed on this would be gratefuly received!
Thanks.
Cem.
-
Thanks a bunch Matt! Your kind response seems to have solved it. I have re-submitted a request to Google today to re-index the site, so I'm hoping the problem will have resolved itself in the next few days. Thank you again! Cem
-
You need to put a 301 redirect from none www. version to your www. version.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93633
If for instance you have an apache server you can create a 301 redirect by placing the following in the .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^cushioncutengagementringsstore.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.cushioncutengagementringsstore.com/$1 [R=301,L]Just checking when you say you specified it with 'no follow' you need to make sure you have noindex, nofollow meta tags on your pages if you don't want Google to index them:
http://www.robotstxt.org/meta.html
alternatively you can use a robots.txt file to block you whole site to stop it being indexed:
http://www.robotstxt.org/robotstxt.html
Hope this helps..
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
URL spacing help
Hi all, easy question: I have a client URL...example.com/giftbags that has been indexed for a while. Should I change the URL to example.com/gift-bags to separate these words for better KW ranking, or would the change be useless at this point? Thanks, -Reed
Technical SEO | | IceIcebaby0 -
Should I change by URL's
I started with a static website and then moved to Wordpress. At the time I had a few hundred pages and wanted to keep the same URL structure so I use a plugin that adds .html to every page. Should I change the structure to a more common URL structure and do 301 directs from the .html page to the regular page?
Technical SEO | | JillB20130 -
Home page URL
Hi, I work on this site: http://www.towerhousetraining.co.uk/about-us. This is the home page URL. Should this be 301'd to: http://www.towerhousetraining.co.uk? I have created a site map, which I submitted to Google Webmaster Tools, which includes these URL's: /about-us, /training-we-offer & /contact-us. There are a total of 3 pages on the website. Webmaster tools has only indexed 2 out of 3 pages. I think this is something to do with the /about-us URL, as when I do a site: search, these pages appear: www.towerhousetraining.co.uk/, /training-we-offer & /contact-us. I am not sure why Google has indexed the home page as www.towerhousetraining.co.uk/ and not /about-us? Is it a bad idea in general not to have your homepage as your root domain? I added a to the homepage, but am wondering if this was the right thing to do? Any help would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | CWseo0 -
How can I see the SEO of a URL? I need to know the progress of a specific landing-page of my web. Not a keyword, an url please. Thanks.
I need to know the evolution on SEO of a specific landing-page (an URL) of my web. Not a keyword, a url. Thanks. (Necesito saber si es posible averiguar el progreso de una URL específica en el posicionamiento de Google. Es decir, lo que hace SEOmoz con las palabras clave pero al revés. Yo tengo una url concreta que quiero posicionar en las primeras posiciones de Google pero quiero ver cómo va progresando en función a los cambios que le voy aplicando. Muchas gracias)
Technical SEO | | online_admiral0 -
Canonical URL
I previously set the canonical Url in google web masters to the non www version, when I check my on page opt, it tells me that I have a critical issue with this. Should I change it in google web masters back to the www version? if so is there the possibility of negative results? Or is there a better way to deal with this? Note, I have inbound links pointing to both types.
Technical SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Dedicated ip helpful for seo
I read somewhere a while back that having a dedicated ip address was helpful for seo if this true or just another rumor? Also I read you should purchase your domain name for multiple yrs, what do you guys think?
Technical SEO | | TinaGammon0 -
Multiple URLs and Dup Content
Hi there, I know many people might ask this kind of question, but nevertheless .... 🙂 In our CMS, one single URL (http://www.careers4women.de/news/artikel/206/) has been produced nearly 9000 times with strings like this: http://www.careers4women.de/news/artikel/206/$12203/$12204/$12204/ and this http://www.careers4women.de/news/artikel/206/$12203/$12204/$12205/ and so on and so on... Today, I wrote our IT-department to either a) delete the pages with the "strange" URLs or b) redirect them per 301 onto the "original" page. Do you think this was the best solution? What about implementing the rel=canonical on these pages? Right now, there is only the "original" page in the Google index, but who knows? And I don't want users on our site to see these URLs, so I thought deleting them (they exist only a few days!) would be the best answer... Do you agree or have other ideas if something like this happens next time? Thanx in advance...
Technical SEO | | accessKellyOCG0 -
Duplicate content error - same URL
Hi, One of my sites is reporting a duplicate content and page title error. But it is the same page? And the home page at that. The only difference in the error report is a trailing slash. www.{mysite}.co.uk www.{mysite}.co.uk/ Is this an easy htaccess fix? Many thanks TT
Technical SEO | | TheTub1