To WWW or not to WWW

To WWW or not to WWW, which would you prefer for your domain?

Just to share some information, your site can be reached via two addresses. For example, this blog can be reached by using:

1. http://silkenhut.com
2. http://www.silkenhut.com

However, it is best to use only one address for your blog. This will be your preferred domain.

Why do I need to have a preferred domain?

For people, it does not matter if you have two addresses. However, for search engines it does.

Search engines are not able to conclude that http://silkenhut.com and http://www.silkenhut.com are just one and the same. Search engines will treat these address as two separate sites. Check out these google queries for silkenhut.com.

• info:silkenhut.com – Google replies, “Oh I know about you! I will be showing web page information for silkenhut.com“
• info:www.silkenhut.com – Google replies, “Who are you? Uhh Sorry, no information is available for the URL www.silkenhut.com“

As you can see, these addresses are supposed to lead to the same site but Mr. Google only knows about one of them.

If you are concerned about your search engine rankings/results, page rank and other similar search engine stuffs, then you should only have one address. Having two address divides your site. You can also be flagged for duplicate content since http://yourdomain/yeah.html will be considered a duplicate for http://www.yourdomain.com/yeah.html.

How do I use only one address?

1. You can use a wordpress plug-in called Enforce www. Preference.
2. You can modify your .htaccess to provide a redirection.
   Which do you prefer?
   1. I prefer to have www in my address because having www is cool! (if someone types in http://yoursite.com, it will become http://www.yoursite.com)Copy this code to your .htaccess
      <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.yoursite\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://yoursite.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
   2. I prefer to have no www in my address because having no www is cool! (if someone types in http://www.yoursite.com, it will become http://yoursite.com)Copy this code to your .htaccess
      <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://domain.com%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

Now decide which one do you want, to www or not to www?

.htaccess code cited from Nate White Hill dot com