Do I need to do a 301, as well as adding re-write rules on Apache

[Ultramod]

I'm sure this has probably been asked somewhere before...

We're implementing a URL re-write rule to convert non dub pages to the www. subdomain and also removing all trailing slashes as part of a basic canonicalisation exercise.

The question is, as well as doing the URL rewrites within htaccess, should I also 301 those duplicate pages or does the URL rewrite do the job on it's own?

Thanks mozzers.

[KevinBudzynski]

Eric's answer was perfect. After launch, I also do a site:nameofdomain.com and click on a random sampling of links to make sure the rules work perfectl (this is more useful if the page name changes). Good luck!

[GlobeRunner]

The URL rewrite "should" take care of it. So, when you enter www.domain.com/page.html it would 301 redirect to domain.com/page.html (or vice versa). Once you have the rewrites in place, then test them by going to a page and see if it redirects properly. Use a http server header checker to see if it's serving up a 301.

Even though the internal links may be using your preferred domain, then you'll want to make sure that anyone requesting (or linking to) the "wrong version" will be 301 redirected to the right version of the page.

Also, I would go into Google Search Console and make sure you tell Google which version is your preferred version: the www or non-www version of your site.