301 redirect

[Nova]

I was reading through admins post about Acorns rankings and 301 redirect.

My site works both as ****.com and as www.****.com. I am afraid I may be getting punished by Google for having duplicate content as they may be seeing it as two separate urls and sites.

Will this be the case?

 

[GreyWing]

Have you got it set in webmasters tools? You can set it there and it should help.

 

[Nova]

Hi Greywing thanks for your reply.This was the first site I ever built. I mainly use Wordpress now but this was done using Yahoo Suitebuilder. I dont have Webmaster Tools on it.

Just out of curiosity what do you mean by "got it set in webmaster tools"? this might be something I can impliment on my other sites.

 

[DarkSky]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=webmaster+tools

first result

add your site to it, then you can set www. preferences.

p.s. Google have said before that it usually wont harm your rankings to have domain.com and www.domain.com, but if content is found on one and not the other, it may then start hitting you for duplicate content.

 

[Nova]

Thanks DarkSky.

What about backlinks to www.*** is your sites also showing in non www would that effect the rankings?

 

[Nova]

Just signed up for webmaster tools.

My site is mainly for the UK but it does have worldwide interest and it is a .com.

Currently this is blank:

Settings
Geographic target
Learn more
Target users in:

Should I set it to United Kingdom or leave it as is?

 

[Nova]

Ive set my preferred domain to the www. version but it also says:

"Note: Once you've set your preferred domain, you may want to use a 301 redirect to redirect traffic from your non-preferred domain, so that other search engines and visitors know which version you prefer."

 

[woopwoop]

I think that google being as smart as we think it is will figure it out.

Don't think that they'd hit you for having www and nonwww site access without 301.

 

[Murray]

You wont get punished and google doesn't see it as duplicate content.

It's not that in anyway it will hurt you if you don't use a 301 redirect, it just wont help you as much because you're splitting link juice.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/

Old post but still right.

 

[Nova]

Thanks Murray. I spoke to Yahoo and 301 redirect is not available with Sitebuilder. I guess the juice will have to remain split.