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Did you know that Google sees www.lonebird.com and lonebird.com as two different sites?

This is called the Google Canonical Problem, and it will not only have a negative affect on your hit count and your page rank but can get you dinged for duplicate content. This is really important to you SEO content people. This is also another spot for me to reinforce something I feel very strongly: your SEO and code writer need to be joined at the hip.

So what is canonicalization? According to Google it is the process of picking the best URL when there are several choices, and it usually refers to the home pages. Here is a better example: take lonebird.com, www.lonebird.com, www.lonebird.com/index.html, lonebird.com/home.asp. To most of us these are the same. But technically they are four different URLs. In theory, during a search a web server could return completely different content for all four. When Google “canonicalizes” a URL, they try to pick the best representative from that set.

Now that we know what canonicalization is the next question should be, how is your website indexed and how can you tell? Simple. Go to Google and type “site:your-domain.com” in the search bar. What you should see is a list of all the pages Google has indexed. Now type in “site:www.your-domain.com”. Do the search results show the same number of pages? If not, then you may have a problem.

So how do we get Google to pick the URL we want and what do we do with the listings that are already out there? The best first step starts with the site itself. Be consistent with your internal links. Be consistent across the entire site. Don’t make half of the links go to sitename.com and the other half go to www.sitename.com. Pick the URL you prefer and always use that format for your internal links. Next, be consistent with listing the site. When listing and indexing the site be sure to use the same URL.

Now, the overall best solution depends on whether your site is hosted on a Linux or Microsoft server.

For those on Linux the answer is to use mod_rewrite. What is that? It is an Apache module which will automatically map all requests to a single and consistent URL. Basically you add a short script to the htaccess.txt file located in the server root:

Options +FollowSymLinks

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^expression-web-tutorials\.com$ [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.expression-web-tutorials.com/$1 [R=301,L]

The htaccess.txt file allows you to send instructions to the server on the fly. Obviously you need knowledge of Apache, php and you need server access. Most of you will need to ask your code writer or site host to help you with this.

If you are on a Microsoft host the process is similar. Windows uses IIS (Internet Information Services) and like Apache it uses modules to extend its instruction set. These are called ISAPI filters (Internet Services Application Interface). An ISAPI filter can be used to rewrite URLs just like mod_rewrite. You can write your own ISAPI filter but it can be a little complicated. Your best bet is to search online for a pre written one. Though there are free ones the better examples are paid. Again you will need a little knowledge and you need server access so you may need the help of your site host or developer.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: By Chris Kaminski. Asheville web design company Lone Bird Studio provides Asheville SEO services, web hosting, search engine optimization. One of the top web designers in Asheville for custom website design.