301 or Rel=canonical

[LeslieVS]

Should I use a 301 redirect for redirect mywebsite.com to www.mywebsite.com or use a rel=canonical??

Thanks!

[SL_SEM]

We use a rewrite rule to do this (301) because we want to keep our analytics easier to manage.

So for example if I have blog.example.com/,  www.example.com/, and example.com/ all tracked under the same analytics setup, and I am not taking the hostname into account then all of my "/" pageviews are pooled together and I don't know if they are blog or www pageviews.

So once I tell analytics to add the hostname to pageviews they come across as blog.example.com/ and www.example.com/, but now I will see www.example.com/ and example.com/ as two different pages in my content reports.

So then I need to have the 301 so my data is consolidated correctly.

This is why I suggest using 301s where you can. This can get tricky if you have a ton of folders and index pages for those folders, but you should at least be doing this for your home page as it will make your reporting life MUCH easier in the long run.

Especially if you aren't tracking across subdomains now, but will want to in the future. If you set it up this way now it will save you some headaches.

Hope that helps!

[bootleg]

If you can do a 301, go for the 301. As far as PageRank is concerned, there's not much of a difference. See Matt Cutts on exactly this topic.

cheers