PR for http://xyz.com not the same as for www.xyz.com

Hello

our site www.xyz.com shows a PR0 but the same site under http://xyz.com shows a PR5 !

All the inbound links shows like: http://xyz.com

Why Google does distinguish between this two styles? Which is the correct or the better one?

I don't know why google distinguishes, but that has happened on many of our sites. We'd thought of getting more links that pointed to the www version of our site, but that seems kinda stupid because it won't increase the link popularity/page rank of the page without the www on it. Our company policy is to just use the non-www version on all links. Are we missing anything here that anyone knows of?

This is a common problem, depending on your server configuration!!

If you're paranoid about it, then I suggest doing a 301 redirect in your .htaccess file (if hosted on apache server)..

In fact, I use this on pretty much every site (including google-dance.com) so if you go to http://google-dance.com, you automatically get 301 redirected to http://www.google-dance.com

Here is the code I use:

A lot of people also use this so they can be sure cookies are only set for the one domain and there are no cross url compatibility issues.

I use it for other secret reasons!!!!

It's to do with how google perceves subdomains

if I have a site that is www.mydomin.com
and links.mydomin.com, and forum.mydomin.com and everythingelse.mydomain.com

any one of these could be my default, so if I link to mydomain.com which should google equate to the main on??? - easier to just not equate them then you just have to be consistant with your inbound links... pick one and stick with it... a more frustrating one I've seen is somone who has http://www.hisdomain.com PR5 and http://hisdomain.com PR4 - Surely had he organized his external links better he would have either a PR6 or PR7 - Life sucks somtimes.

As for which is better?
Hmmm... Why is it your company policy to go with //domain ?
Why fly in the face of convension? - If you didn't already have a PR 5 I would have said go with www. the other 3billion sites that google lists can't all be wrong. but if you have the PR5 stick with it....

*Darren*
Will google see the 301 as favorably as if they left the //domain well alone, I know that google doesn't like other .htaccess tricks, like redirects (404 etc) Do you have a good reason for believing that 301 isn't seen in a bad light, (don't get me wrong - if its not seen as a bad thing I can move the PR4 onto the PR5 for that guy I told you about and really make his day! - It would be a really nice thng to know)

Here's the theory Robin...

Some people natually link to //www.domain.com and others link to //domain.com - depending on why they use in general themselves! So sometimes (depending on server configuration) you have 2 different PR's for the //www.domain.com and //domain.com .. The PR for each of these is calculated as normal using the PR formulae for the inbound links .. So, with a 301 redirect, the PR that is used for the //domain.com address can be "forwarded" (given that it's a 301), googlebot just uses the PR for //domain.com for the page it gets directed to (//www.domain.com in this case).

This makes the PR for 1 of the URL's optimal and the other minimal..

There are other factors to consider, more important ones!! Many ISP's cannot resolve to websites that do not include the "www" in the URL, after all this is web standard... The only URL's that don't need the "www" are sub-domains..

Good explanation Darrin, thank you. The only problem for me is, I don´t know, where I have to integrate this short code!? I´m not a Server-Professional. I have a .htaccess file on my server for password protection. Is it this one you mean? The server is an apache.
thaks for replay
Mario

If you don't already have a .htaccess file in your root directory, then create one and put in the code as above (changing to your domain name)..

If the file exists in the root, then just add this code to the file (at the TOP of the file, before anything else)..

The Mod_ReWrite module must be installed - try it and if it don't work then you know it's not installed!!

Darrin it works well, thank you.

Mario

Does this mean that Google sees the ServerAlias directive as a negative?

in fact, http://www.xyz.com and http://xyz.com are 2 DIFFERENT domains!.

The www was only the signal for the "http" service in the beginning of the http. So, google is right, if it makes a difference, because it could be possible, that you get 2 different pages.

for example:
http://www.liferadio.at
http://liferadio.at

So, don't worry.

Innuendo

I have an .htaccess file in the root of a domain I am trying to run this mod_rewrite rule on. When I add your code at the top of my htaccess it doesn't work (makes the server return a you are not able to view / on this server type message).

I have some other things in the htaccess file, in order they are.

some RedirectPermanent's for old links to new locations

php_value def

and an ErrorDocument 404

So, is there something here that's confilcting with the code at the top you suggested. One more thing, it's a .co.uk domain name... shouldn't matter I guess, but I just replaced the .com in your example with the .co.uk .. (along with my domain name of course!)

Thanks

Amy

I'm not sure, I'm not a complete HTACCESS whizzkid, but if you PM me your entire .htaccess file I'll have a look at it and see if everything is ok. The other option is that maybe MOD_Rewrite is not installed on your server?? Ask your system administrator!!