Domain.com and www.domain.com

[ChristopherGlaeser]

I recently changed the settings in Google Webmaster Tools so that domain.com and www.domain.com are the same.  Several quick questions.

• About how long will it take for Google to list www.domain.com and stop listing domain.com?

• The .htaccess file uses a 301 to redirect all domain.com paths.to www.domain.com paths.  Now that Google has been informed these two are the same, are the 301 rules to add www necessary?

• The default page is index.php. so domain.com gets 301 to www.domain.com gets 301 to www.domain.com/index.php.  Is this the correct way to do things?

• Are there SEO consultants who will help on small projects such assist on issues like this?

Best,
Christopher

[gfiorelli1]

Hi Christopher, Answering by points:

1. Google needs a certain amount of time before start showing just the canonical version of the site, time that depends on how big the site is.

2. I suggest you to keep the 301 redirection in the .htaccess file

• because so you are sure the the not www Urls in the SERPS are sending users to their www versions;
• because may exist backlinks sending to not www links and this way your a redirecting not only users but also a great % of that backlink juice to the correct URL;
• because exists also Bing, which obviously does not care of what you decide in GWT.

3. what you did is incorrect. Infact the www.domain.com/index.php url version of the home page should have to 301 to www.domain.com, let say the opposite of what you have done.

Redirect 301 /index.php http://www.domain.com/

Finally, about finding SEOs, why don't you try the job section here in the Seomoz site, here > http://www.seomoz.org/marketplace/jobs?

Ciao

[AlanMosley]

I agree with Gianluca, but i would also add,

301 to www.domain.com or domain.com, but not to index.php

also do not 301 twice. 301 directly to the last final destination

[ChristopherGlaeser]

Thanks for the quick responses.  I will add the redirect of index.php to domain.com/, but I don't know where the 301 of domain.com/ to index.php is coming from.  It's not in .htaccess.  Is that just a generic rule somewhere in the Apache server so that doman.com/ will default to an actual page?

Best,
Christopher

EDIT: I think I found the problem. The site was originally created using .html pages and later converted to .php pages.  There was a 301 for index.html to index.php.  I changed to to

Redirect 301 /index.html http://www.domain.com/

and also added

Redirect 301 /index.php http://www.domain.com/