Duplicate content

[Naturalmente]

Hi everybody,

I am thrown into a SEO project of a website  with a duplicate content problem  because of a version with and a version without 'www' . The strange thing is that the version with www. has got more than 10 times more Backlings but is not in the organic index. Here are my questions:

1. Should I go on using the "without www" version as the primary resource?

2. Which kind of redirect is best for passing most of the link juice?

Thanks in advance, Sebastian

[Naturalmente]

Thank you... There is no google webmaster account made yet , so i think nobody defined the "without www version" to be cannonical or so so far.

If I follow your advice - will google replace the without www page in the index with the www version immediately or will the site be off the index temporarily?

[NakulGoyal]

Sebastian, you should consider doing the following:

A. Verify your domain in Google Webmaster Console and set whatever your preferred display URL is.One with www or without.

B. Let's say you decide to use the www version, which is what most webmasters prefer, setup a .htaccess file as below. This will take care of the problem. It will help you avoid any duplicate content issues in Google. It will also avoid the possibility of split page rank and/or split link popularity (inbound links).It's nicer, and more consistent.

<code class="htaccess" title="in your .htaccess file">RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]</code>