# Is the WWW and NO-WWW still a problem ?



## T-BOT (Jul 24, 2006)

...is it ok now to have the same exact 2 URL's ?



curious.


thanks in advance.  




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## simplicitywear (Apr 17, 2007)

T-BOT said:


> ...is it ok now to have the same exact 2 URL's ?


I'm not sure you what you mean exactly ... "exact same" in terms of what? And what problem did you have before? Do you mean like www dot tdott dot com and tdott dot com (sorry couldn't figure out how to display the actually URL, the post kept inserting the title of the page (argghhh!))? Why would this NOT be ok? The only differences that I know of between the two deal with SSL certificates and DNS servers. -Tom


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## kentphoto (Jan 16, 2006)

Yep, you can. 

You put a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file. 
http://www.stepforth.com/faq/non-www-redirect.htm


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## IdleMedia (Apr 22, 2007)

It really shouldnt matter if you just want people to come to your site. www[.]mysite[.]com and mysite[.]com is pretty much the same usually.

when it comes to SSL certificates though, you have to use the right prefix (www or whatever) that you registered it with unless you buy a wildcard certificate (which works on *[.]mysite[.]com).

What I tend to do with SSL is do a dedicated subdomain for SSL like secure[.]mysite[.]com or checkout[.]mysite[.]com

Course I couldve misunderstood the question and wasted time typing stuff you care note about, but I can't sleep so whateva


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## T-BOT (Jul 24, 2006)

thank you all.

well, I read an article a few years ago that basicaly said that if you have a URL WWW-DOMAIN-COM and also DOMAIN-COM, the content on that page/URL is exactly the same. So, by having 2 URL's that have the same exact content is a waste of webspace, it will also DUPlicate the entire site, the same site/content for the WWW-SITE as for the NO-WWW-SITE.

so if you have 500 page site, now you have 1000 page site because of the WWW and NO-WWW Duplicate-issue.

some call this web polution because it was/is not necessary and more work for the indexing bots, more URL's to crawl.


I was just curious if this is still the same problem today or if any new developments have come to light without manualy doing 301 Redirects, server side redirects type thing as Kent mentioned.



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## IdleMedia (Apr 22, 2007)

Hmm, not sure what article you read, but that sounds pretty dumb coming from "professionals" lol. It's the same site no matter how you access it. Nowadays you don't have to put www before everything because 1) servers are setup to handle it, and 2) browsers sometimes do it for you.

So it's not "pollution", you just access the site a different way. For example:


```
http://64.72.127.150/
http://www.gripteez.com
http://gripteez.com
```
will ALL get you to my site no problem. They're not different sites, it's the same site, just a different way to call it up.

It's like if your name is Robert and I called you Bob. Same person, different name.


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## prometheus (Oct 19, 2006)

On a side note to this, where I work, they have blocked certain sites like youtube and such. If you don't put the "www" in front, you can bypass the system and access the sites. Hmmm.


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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

Your IT department sucks! LOL


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## IdleMedia (Apr 22, 2007)

Vtec44 said:


> Your IT department sucks! LOL


agreed lol. How hard is it to block subdomains as well!


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## prometheus (Oct 19, 2006)

I agree that my IT department sucks. Especialy when I need something done. I found this out from an individual who works for Home Depot and they do the same thing.


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## T-BOT (Jul 24, 2006)

IdleMedia said:


> Hmm, not sure what article you read, but that sounds pretty dumb coming from "professionals" lol.


here it is: Why Does Google Treat "www" & "no-www" As Different?




ok, so may be i'm lost here, but are these 2 URL's not different, 1 with the WWW the other with NO-WWW... is this correct ?





 




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## Vtec44 (Apr 24, 2006)

www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com are the same. I guess Google has to treat the 2 different because the possibility of home.yoursite.com and www.yoursite.com, at least according to that article.


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

It seems like there might be slightly more problem with this than I would've guessed, based on some of the SEO discussion I've seen about it. I still don't think it's really essential to have http://---.--- redirect to http://www.---.--- (or vice-versa), but you might as well. Just one more small step that might help your rankings slightly.


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