Changing url from non www to www.

[FLEAR]

basically I have realised i have more page authority and links going to www.onestopmuscle.co.uk instead of onestopmuscle.co.uk. I use wordpress and have no clue how to make sure onestopmuscle.co.uk redirects to www. version.

anyone have any ideas? I don't want to mess about with files or i'll most likely make the blog into a disaster.

[SEODinosaur]

Since its wordpress you can do it in the wordpress settings back end.

[FLEAR]

settings > general settings

wordpress url: http://onestopmuscle.co.uk

site address url: http://onestopmuscle.co.uk

So if i change both to have www. it wont cause any problems with the site content on there already? I'm sure I did this before and i couldn't even log into the site! ( old site ).

[GeorgeAndrews]

In the Wordpress admin area, under General Settings, there is a input for WordPress Address (URL). Here, you can set the URL you would like to use for your base URL (e.g. http://www.example.com/). If you use www. here, your pages should use the www. version.

Hope this helps!

[GeorgeAndrews]

Hi Scott, yes, this should be correct. After updating this value, you may need to log back in to continue using the admin area. This is because you are likely logged in at the old sub-domain of simply onestopmuscle.co.uk rather than the new sub-domain of www.onestopmuscle.co.uk and with the new redirect, you have to log in again. It's kind of strange behavior I know :).

[FLEAR]

do i change the site address url to include www. also? or just the wordpress url part? thanks for the help!

[SEODinosaur]

Exactly, and as George said :   "you are likely logged in at the old sub-domain of simply onestopmuscle.co.uk rather than the new sub-domain of www.onestopmuscle.co.uk"

[SEODinosaur]

The wordpress which is the site.

[FLEAR]

have changed it to include www. but it still redirects to onestopmuscle.co.uk ( without the www ) :@. this is soo annoying and I know it is probably such a simple fix.

[SEODinosaur]

Do you have anything redirecting in your htaccess file? It could be that or it could be on the hosting end...

[FLEAR]

tried going into filezilla, cannot find a .htaccess file. I will phone up my hosting.

thanks

[GeorgeAndrews]

Edit: just saw you have already checked with FileZilla. I've created a new htaccess file and pasted in what Wordpress provides as an example then uploaded the new htaccess file to fix this on other sites.

[FLEAR]

so i create a .htaccess file, get all the right code for the redirects. upload that .htaccess file to the index.php file? I'll phone my hosting tomorrow see if they can sort it, but thanks everyone who has responded helped a lot.

[SEODinosaur]

No prob : ) Let us know how it works out..

[FLEAR]

hey guys, finally had the balls to change the site url on the wordpress backend to contain www. ( did it on a old site and it messed it up ) and that worked!! Strange tho seems all my social media likes and shares have gone from the site, everything is at zero... not sure why maybe google needs to index all the pages again?

I do have more links and more page authority with www. than without, so im hoping its a good move.

[GeorgeAndrews]

Excellent news that you were able to get it to work.

I'd say yes your social media links have zeroed out because they used the old URL without the www. It's not a Google thing though and won't be fixed by re-indexing the site. However, my understanding is that Wordpress 301 redirects the links from the non-www URL to the www URL so your link juice should still flow to the new URLs and the shared links will still resolve to the right page. The only caveat is that the actual number for likes and shares in your social share buttons has reset to 0.

In my opinion, it's a good move (you're just missing the "eye-candy" for now) and this number will rise again as people begin to share using the new URLs.

[SEODinosaur]

I agree with George _"Wordpress 301 redirects the links from the non-www URL to the www URL so your link juice should still flow to the new URLs and the shared links will still resolve to the right page" _in the long run this will conserve you link juice.