Redirecting non www site

[Davenport-Tractor]

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen.

I 100% agree with the redirecting of the non www domain name. After all we see so many times, especially in MOZ how the two different domains contain different links, different DA and of course different PA. So I have posed the question to our IT company, "How would we go about redirecting our non www domain to the www version?", "Where would we do that?", " we cant do the redirect on our webserver because the website is listed as an IP address, not a domain name, so would we do the redirect somewhere at GoDaddy?" who is currently maintain our DNS record

So here is the response from IT:  " I would setup a CNAME record in DNS (GoDaddy), such that no matter if you go to the bare domain, or the www, you end up in the same place. As for SEO, having a 301 redirect for your bare domain isn't necessary, because both the bare domain and the www are the same domain.  301 is a redirect for "permanently moved" and is common when you change domain names.  Using the bare domain or the www are NOT DIFFERENT DOMAINS, so the 301 would not be accurate, and you'd be telling engines you've moved, when you haven't - which may negatively impact your rank.

It sounds to me that IT is NOT recommending the redirect. How can this be? Or are we talking about two different things? Will the redirect cause the melt down as the IT company suggests? Or do they nut understand SEO?

[Davenport-Tractor]

Thanks for the help guys, but .........

Well maybe I left out a few important pieces of information, because we need more accurate information.

First we are not on a shared server, and don't use c panel. We are on a stand alone server. We don't use GoDaddy for anything other than that's where the domain name was purchased, so they currently have the DNS record pointer. We are running our website alone on a windows server enterprise 2007 edition.

So even though EnvoyWeb above provided a detailed answer, those directions don't work under our edition of windows server.

Any incite? Please?

[EnvoyWeb]

I'll concur that I don't give any money to Godaddy for this and other reasons, but if you are happy with them I hope this helpls:

When using a Windows server, you can redirect to a 301 page using IIS.

1. In the Internet Services Manager, select the file or folder you want to redirect.
2. From the right-click menu, select a redirection to a URL.
3. Specify the file name of the page to which you want to redirect.
4. Select The exact URL entered above.
5. Select A permanent redirection for this resource.
6. Click Apply.

[GregB123]

Everything I've read has said to redirect everything to either the www or non-www version. Usually in the htaccess file.

It may be time to dump GoDaddy and get a more full-featured hosting company. I used to use Yahoo for my hosting and they also did not allow things like access to the htacess file and 301 redirects. Once I went to a better hosting company I was so much better off.

Now I use GreenGeeks.com for all my hosting. They have a full cpanel and all the good features. They will do your site migration for free. If you don't know how to do the techy Server stuff, they have great free phone support that will actually do things like alter the htaccess while you are speaking to them (which they have done a few times now for me).

[Davenport-Tractor]

Yes we already have chosen the preferred domain in GWMT, but that only effects Google spiders. We are hosted in a windows based IIS environment so there is no .htaccess file.

So I guess my real question is how do we setup the redirect? Is that in the DNS server Godaddy? How to do that?

[RohitPalit]

Whether you care about SEO or not, redirect the non-preferred version to the preferred one (www or non-www) using a simple 301 redirection. If you have access to your web server, you can modify the .htaccess file at the root of your site. Google for the exact lines of codes to add (they depend on whether you are redirecting to the www or non-www version).

You can use Google Webmaster Tools to choose a preferred version of site link for Google.