Can some brilliant mozzer out there teach a moron/newbie like me how to 301 redirect several URL's I have?

[creativeguy]

Okay -

I am a supermodel.  I look pretty.  My legs are amazing.  My cheekbones are high.  But when it comes to 301 redirects I am the ugliest supermodel on the block.

Crap, here is the truth:  I am not even a supermodel.  I am just a middle-aged, goofy looking dude who is a newbie to fixing websites.

I have inherited several sites from a friend and I have been helping by creating solid contextual links internally and externally for a while.  But, when Roger the wondrous SEOMoz robot talks to me, he says, "oops, it looks like your foolish freak self has a site that has both a www. and a non-www, which can create competition for yourself."

What do I do when he says that?

I just whisper a "thank-you" but gently press the skip this step button and go on with my life because I do not know how to make my non-www.'s redirect into the www. sites...

Now, I have sort of asked this question on the site before, but I was answered by someone who does not understand my level of ignorance.

any use of the word canonical or just put this lfwjkshj.htp/php inside the left ear of your mom, does not tell me anything

so, is there any willing and kind soul who can walk me through redirecting several of my sites to their proper home - kind of like Carl Chubbs Weathers did for Happy Gilmore in that Academy Award winning classic?

Thanks for the help in advance

best,

dumbhead

[eyepaq]

I'm no brilliant mozzer but hopfully can still help.

If you want to redirect all non-www requests to your site to the www version, all you need to do is add the following code to your .htaccess file:

`RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]`

This will redirect any requests to http://my-domain.com to http://www.my-domain.com.

That's of course if you have htaccess. if you are using a windows based platform the approach is a little different.

What is htaccess ?

http://www.htaccess-guide.com/

In short - a file on your root domain that you can dl edit with text pad if needed and upload back in the same place.

[KeriMorgret]

Howdy!

I understand that some of this stuff can sound like gibberish if you don't understand what's going on. If you can tell us your site's URL that would help us out. If not, can you let us know if you're using something like Wordpress or Joomla? We can tailor our advice to you a bit better if we know more about your site. Just like it's easier to give instructions about changing your oil if we know what kind of car you have and we can tell you exactly what to look for, rather than giving more general information.

Keri

[creativeguy]

Thanks a lot for requesting clarification - These sites are built on CMS made easy.

One example is:

http://www.affordablestoragelubbock.com  and http://affordablestoragelubbock.com

another is

http://www.aplussuperstorage.com and http://aplussuperstorage.com

I can give you like five others, but it is pretty much the same issue

many many thanks for what you can offer

and I am not sure whether or not I have access to the htaccess file - why?

because I am a dumbbell who cannot be trusted with much more than an x-box controller

[eyepaq]

To be honest I would't spend to much time on this. I don't see it as a huge priority. It's nice to solve it but if it requaiers hiring someone or getting the extra mile ... is just not worth it.

The process is easy for someone with some technical background.

Google is kind of smart in understanding that your non www version is not really duplicate content with your www version so I would let it slide if it's to hard to get it done.

If you do want to change it, CMS made easy dosen't support the htaccess management via the web interface so it needs to be done the "hard way" and that means you need to have FTP data to your domain ( domains), an FTP client so you can login, download the htaccess file, edit it and upload it again. If all that is over the tech abilities that's fine - it dosen't mean you should get another job. It's all technical.

Some easy ways to get this done: find someone you trust with some tech skills to do that - it take sless the 10 min or get a freelancer via elance or whatever to do that (but make sure they have some really good feedbacks from past clients are you are about to send them full access to your site)

Dose it make sense ?

[KeriMorgret]

I'm downloading the manuals for CMS made Easy right now, but they're taking a bit of time to download. If you use the FTP login information you have to make an FTP connection to your site, you should be able to see (you may have to enable viewing of hidden files) a file called .htaccess (yes, there's a period in front of the file). You can download that to your computer, open it in a text editor (like notepad), make the edits that eyepaq mentions, then upload it again. I'd first make a copy of the file in case you screw something up.

When the manuals download, I'll look through them to see if there's a setting within their program that makes this easier for you.

[AlanMosley]

THe logic i like to follow, is make sure all domain names point to the correct version. to make that plain rather than, if B then redirect to A, you should say if Not A then redirect to A

For linux servers put this in your htaccess

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.mydomain.com$
RewriteRule (.*) "http://www.mydomain.com/$1" [R=301,L]

for a windows server I have a tutorial here

http://thatsit.com.au/seo/tutorials/how-to-fix-canonical-domain-name-issues