WordPress.org

1. dibul
   Member
   Posted 11 months ago #

   Hello. I have some loose ends - not being 100 % sure of. Indices but no firm proof :-)

   I understood that having the engines spider bot the http://www.domain.com and domain.com url versions (canonical url version I think) means that the back links get diluted between those two versions and the SE's rank them both lower instead of ranking one version higher.

   WHat do I do? Use rel 301 to direct all the page downloads from the domain.com to the http://www.domain.com instead? Delete the domain.com version n google tools?

   I understood that the http://www.domain.com is the version mostly linked to.

   I see that wordpress.org doesn't apply the www.
   Is it an automatic redirect in the .htaccess file causing this?

   WHy is the site ULR specified to domain.com in the settings/general in the WP administration panel?

   DOes one change it there or in the DNS at the hosting company or in a third place. SOmewhere I read that GOogle tools is not the place to change it.

   Please help
   DIbul

2. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 11 months ago #

   http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html

3. dibul
   Member
   Posted 11 months ago #

   Thanks. I knew most of it but some clarified it further.

   I still wonder why one should choose httP://domain.com over httP://www.domain.com (wordpress.org is like that). WHy choose one over the other?

   I don't know what it means when I make it domain.com in the settings/general instead of applying www to it. WHy not put the whole http://www.domain.com there?

   Has that implications on what is the primary or is that not related? I guess not.

   I am just wondering what is dealt with in the htaccess file. I wonder if my file is correct and if there is some automatic redirect there: It's like this (the abcwebsitemarketing and abc-web-site-marketing.com are add ons and not my primary domain ...

   RewriteEngine on

   RewriteEngine off
   <IfModule mod_suphp.c>
   suPHP_ConfigPath /home/dines/public_html/php.ini
   <Files php.ini>
   order allow,deny
   deny from all
   </Files>
   </IfModule>

   # BEGIN WordPress
   <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
   RewriteEngine On
   RewriteBase /
   RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
   RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
   </IfModule>

   # END WordPress

   RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^abcwebsitemarketing.com$ [OR]
   RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.abcwebsitemarketing.com$
   RewriteRule ^/?$ "http\:\/\/abc\-web\-site\-marketing\.com\/" [R=301,L]

   I have some add one domains, the two at the bottom. I wonder why there is no backslash before the full stops (.) SHouldn't it be abcwebsitemarketing/.com$

4. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 11 months ago #

   WHy choose one over the other?

   Well, you have to choose one of the two as your urls in Settings -> General. Let's say you chose the bare domain name: example.com. That, in turn, creates a problem in that some people who type in your site url might prefix it with www.. So you can end up on a catch-22 situation. Using .htaccess to redirect all calls to the www version of your url to the bare domain name solves that problem but introduces a new one - will Google view these 2 urls as 1 site or 2 and penalise you?

   Google is pretty smart in this regard and very often can resolve the issue itself but you may end up with the www version appearing in search results when you really wanted just example.com (maybe that's what you just got printed on your stationary). This can be resolved by defining a canonical url - a way of telling Google "OK - so there are links pointing to http://www.example.com and example.com but I'd like you to just index & use example.com - thank you very much".

   There are plugins that allow you set define a canonical url for your site. Or you can add something to your theme's header.php file. Or best of all, publish & submit a Google .xml sitemap file. Goggle will assume that the urls contained in the sitemap are canonical.

   Does that help at all?

5. dibul
   Member
   Posted 11 months ago #

   Thanks a lot for the answer. I Just thought I could do it by choosing the http://www.domain.com version as the primary chosen one in the google webmaster tools, combined with the .htaccess redirect which I think ought to be like this and added to the end of the file (since I have the stuff shown in my commentary from before ...Is that a good approach?

   RewriteEngine on
   RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC]
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

   ELse I'd do the sitemap as you say.

   I don't know if too many plugins will make the site heavy to surf around on for the visitors due to bloated code? I have a few already.

   ALso I am not sure if putting the redirect in the header is sufficient since I think I might have pages/posts without that template as well.

   I don't know if what I say makes sense, since I am not an expert?

6. dibul
   Member
   Posted 11 months ago #

   One more thing: DO I understand you correctly that I DO have to select either the http://www.comain.com or domain.com in the admin setttings/ general in WordPress? If I choose http://www.domain.com will people then not be able to write domain.com and arrive at my site? Now I have domain.com selected there and automatically I get redirected to the domain.com if I write http://www.domain.com in the url line.

   DOes that tell something?

   Txs on beforehand :-)

7. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 11 months ago #

   I Just thought I could do it by choosing the http://www.domain.com version as the primary chosen one in the google webmaster tools,

   That should work just fine. And your .htaccess looks good too.

   I don't know if too many plugins will make the site heavy to surf around on for the visitors due to bloated code? I have a few already.

   It can do - although it does depend on what the plugins are. General rule of thumb - any plugin that filters, alters or adds to content on the front end of the site will have a much bigger impact on performance compared to, say, a plugin that adds an editing tool in the back end. Another thing to look out for is plugins or themes that make a lot of database calls. Then there's the server performance to factor in...

   End result: some people can easily run 40+ plugins without any obvious performance hit whilst others struggle with half that number.

   ALso I am not sure if putting the redirect in the header is sufficient since I think I might have pages/posts without that template as well.

   Why use a header re-direct when you can use .htaccess? It's always better to redirect at the server level than at the page level.

8. dibul
   Member
   Posted 11 months ago #

   Great thanks a lot for your godsend answers. So nice to be in this forum of wordpress users compared to some commercial closed forum. I definately will be more around.

   Just one more thing: I am not sure whether to change the http://domain.com in the URL setting in WordPress to HttP://www.domain.com. Will that refrain people from being able to use the version without www in the url line?

   I don't understand what impact this choice in wordpress has. I can't seem to find that info anywhere. I remember that I read somewhere that one is free to choose but now I have two choices to make...

   1) Is http://www.domain.com or domain.com the better version with regards to Google and its search engines and ranking?

   2) DOes the choice of http://www.domain.com or domain.com in admin / settings /general affect this in any way? DOes it restrict the other choice?

   Nice day :-) and again thanks again for your prompt kind answer.

9. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 11 months ago #

   Will that refrain people from being able to use the version without www in the url line?

   Only if you don't add a rewrite rule to your .htaccess files to deal with it. But why not leave it as is and add a rule to rewrite the www version? That's what I tend to do these days.

   RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example\.com$ [NC]
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

   Q1. I don't think it makes any difference either way right now. However, I have noticed that the use of bare domain names (http://example.com) is definitely increasing compared to the pre-fixed www versions.

   Q2. No. Not in any way.

10. dibul
    Member
    Posted 11 months ago #

    Txs. To be sure I understand you correctly.....

    1) you use domain.com without www in the admin of wordpress

    2) You redirect all arrivals /downloads of the www url version to the http://domain.com version since you prefer having the version without www.

11. esmi
    Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
    Posted 11 months ago #

    I do - yes. But I usually also use .htaccess to rewrite http://www.example.com to example.com. http://quirm.net is an example. As you'll see http://www.quirm.net also works but the url in the browser address bar is rewritten.

12. dibul
    Member
    Posted 11 months ago #

    Great site you have!

    In my case though, I notice that there are more links to the http://www.domain.com version, so I think it would be not a good idea to tell Google that I only want the bare canonical url version ranked.

    I am still unsure what will be the consequense of telling Google that one of the versions is it. I know Google uses smart algorithms so they usually know what to rank but...

    I read someones story about having one of the versions ranked at the cost of the other since Google makes it's choice. That resulted in his ranking to dissapear. It also was due to relative linking which evidently confused the search engines to believe that the bare version was the true one.

    WHat do you think? What is your argument for using the bare version? WHat are the benefits of that. And will links to the www version still count in favor of the ranking, due to the 301 redirect?

    SOrry about the lots of questions.

13. esmi
    Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
    Posted 11 months ago #

    What is your argument for using the bare version?

    Frankly, I don't think it matters one way or another in terms of search engine ranking.

14. Ipstenu
    Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
    Posted 11 months ago #

    I use sans www cause it's shorter.

    That's about it.

15. dibul
    Member
    Posted 11 months ago #

    I myself prefer to just write without www if possible but I don't know how often it is or how many think that way.

    I am also concerned with linking since when one write http://www.domain.com it automatically turns into a link but without www not.

    Thinking that way it seems more logical that people would tend to write the www version when they do it manually and don't pay much attention to the actual url.

    I don't know if thats any argument of importance.

    ALso I read that one ought to be consistent with the internal linking as well as the external linking but perhaps it doesn't matter when the redirect is there.

16. Ipstenu
    Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
    Posted 11 months ago #

    I am also concerned with linking since when one write http://www.domain.com it automatically turns into a link but without www not.

    That's actually a bug with the forum, but ... yeah.

    http://domain.com is still a link ;)

    Be consistent internally, redirect external sources. You're fine.

17. dibul
    Member
    Posted 11 months ago #

    Thank you both :-)

18. dibul
    Member
    Posted 11 months ago #

    I still wonder what impact the setting to http://domain.com vs http://www.domain.com in the admin / settings /general in WordPress has. Can anyone answer that? I noticed in my linkcloaker that it automatically sets my link to the bare url which I have selected in the admin. Apart from that I don't know. DOes it affect what the search engines know?
    Isn't there a conflict between this admin settings and setting the primary canonical URL to another thing in the google webmaster tools or sending in a sitemap using the Google webmaster tools?

    I am happy about the answers but I still have this basic doubt.

    Txs

19. esmi
    Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
    Posted 11 months ago #

    what impact the setting to http://domain.com vs http://www.domain.com in the admin / settings /general in WordPress has.

    None as ling as you follow one of the methods in Changing_The_Site_URL.

    DOes it affect what the search engines know?

    No.

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