How to redirect www.YourName.com to YourName.com ?

Posted in Blog Tips, How To, SEO Tips | By AhTim @ September 14th, 2007

Why Redirect ?

In order to avoid duplicate content penalty by most search engine, for eg: Google, I would suggest you to keep ONLY one url, choose youself either www.YourName.com or YourName.com

Also if you stick to only 1 domain name, your domain name would not confuse Google and for sure will increase your domain's ranking in Google or Alexa.

For me, I would like to use AhTim.com as my Blog url instead of www.AhTim.com because I think shorter url can let people easier to memorize.

How to Redirect ?

1. Create a text file name ".htaccess" by using notepad

2. copy and paste the statements below into your .htaccess file

RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^YourName.com$ [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://YourName.com/$1 [L,R=301]

3. Replace the value YourName.com to your own domain name

4. Upload .htaccess to your domain root folder.

You are Done !

My two cents

If you want to become a pro blogger, this step is a must so that you can monitor your Alexa ranking or traffic with more accurate data.

Have you set for your own Blog ? Please give your comment