How do I use only one URL

[Weblion]

my site can be reach by both www.site.com and site.com.  How do I make it only use www?

[Matt-Williamson]

Setup a 301 redirect (permanent) from site.com to www.site.com. You might find this guide useful - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

And this will show you all the different ways of creating a 301 redirect - http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php

[Weblion]

Thank you so much!  This is what I was looking for.

[MalcolmGibb]

Matt is right, but you may also want to use a .htaccess solution. Add this or get your devs to add this to your .htaccess file

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

If you use this method plus Matt's then you may find you end up with a redirect loop. I personally use the .htaccess rule, but each to their own.

[Matt-Williamson]

Glad I could help weblion,

Malcolm that is a 301 redirect using .htaccess that you have written - the second link on my response shows you the different ways to go about implementing a 301 redirect including your method, which I have personally used on sites.

Not all web servers are compatible with 301 redirects using .htaccess, so I would definitely look at the different options for which best fits in with your setup.

[MalcolmGibb]

Yes, sorry did not see the second link, and yes some web servers notably windows iis shared servers are pretty tricky at setting up .htaccess. Both are valid solutions though, just depends on circumstances.

[Weblion]

Thanks so much for the information!