Search Engine Optimization Information

URL Rewrites that will improve search engine ranking

Making sure when you type in your URL in the browser it goes to one standard domain.

Rewriting url's is a common method SEO experts implement. You can tell allot from an SEO site when looking at the url. When you type in there url in the address bar, for example: you insert "http://www.website.com" press enter, then you insert http://website.com (without the www) does it still go to http://www.website.com (the original site).

If it does not then the site is sharing page rank between the two domains, one with the "www" and one without the "www". This is where url rewrites come in handy. They are used within linux server environments.

Making sure the foundation is correct to improve search engine ranking

When people link to your web site, they may link to http://www.website or http://website.com. You want to make sure no matter how they link to your web site it always goes to the same url.

If you have 500 links pointing to http://www.website.com

and you have 500 links pointing to http:website.com

Then the same domain is sharing page rank. Why not take that page rank and place it into one entire "universal" domain. This is why we use URL rewriting for websites.

In order to be sure that all the links point correctly to http://www.website.com you would use the url rewrite in your .htaccess file in your file server.

Below is the code you should write to insert into your .htaccess file. Remember, if you are not experienced at doing url rewrites you may want some professional assistance or be sure back up your .htaccess file before modifying.

Problem: I want all non-www URLs to go to their www version to protect against duplicate content issues with Google.

Solution: (enter the text below in the .htaccess file, be sure to change the domain to your website.)

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

This will help you pass page rank to one solid url in your website. Also, if someone types in your url without the "www" it will redirect them properly to http://www.website.com

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