Questions about root domain setup

[enbphotos]

Hi There,

I'm a recent addition to SEOmoz and over the past few weeks I've been trying to figure things out.  This whole SEO process has been a bit of a brain burner but its slowly becoming a little more clearer.

For awhile I noticed that I was unable to get Open Site Explorer to display information about my site.  It mentioned that that there was not enough data for the URL.  Too recent of a site, no links, etc.  Eventually I changed the the URL to include "www." and it pulled up results.

I also noticed that a few of my page warnings are because of duplicate page content.  One page will be listed as http://enbphotos.com.  The other will be listed as http://www.enbphotos.com.

I guess I'm not sure what this all means and how to change it.  I'm also not really sure what the terminology even is and something regarding root domain seemed appropriate but I'm not sure if it is accurate.

Any help/suggestions/links would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Chris

[loopyal]

Hello Chris.

I see you have an apache server.

You should be able to add a few lines of redirect code in your .htaccess file in the document root directory.

Here is a response from Ryan Schwab that answers your need to redirect:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/is-there-an-easier-way-from-the-server-to-prevent-duplicate-page-content

Unfortunately, some people have linked to you with www and some without it.

You may suffer a little for a while, but you could come out of it even better than you were before.

[Matt-Williamson]

This is a common issue with sites in relation to duplicate content - I would look at setting up a 301 (permanent) redirect from none www version of your page to the www version.

Have a look at the SeoMoz guide to redirection here - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/redirection

Hope this helps

[enbphotos]

Thanks very much for your responses!  I looked at those threads and I was about to add that bit of redirect code when I noticed I already have an .htaccess uploaded to my server.  It has a small bit of code redirecting a subdomain/cname thing.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^proofs.enbphotos.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.proofs.enbphotos.com$
RewriteRule ^.*$ "http://accounts.exposuremanager.com" [R=301,L]

Can I just add the other bit of redirect below this?

Thanks again for your help!

[enbphotos]

Hi Alan,  Thanks again for your response.  I just wanted to follow up with you and see if you had any pointers for my below response?  It turns out I have a .htaccess already in play.  It's for a CNAME/subdomain setup.  Do you know if I can just add the bit of code that you linked me too directly below what is already in my htaccess?

[Matt-Williamson]

what is the small bit or rewrite code that is already in there? Does it already engage the RewriteEngine? If so you don't need that line twice but you can just add your other code below the existing and it should work.

A lot of hosting environments that are on shared servers for instance allow you to put redirects etc in place through interfaces and then create the .htaccess for you...

[loopyal]

The engine is already invoked, with that code.

Add a few blank lines between RewriteEngine on and the other lines

Keep those other lines together. (I don't think they work)

And put the new code one blank line after invoking the engine.

keep a blank line after the new code.

-- Those other lines say this:

IF a request comes for proofs.enbphotos.com

OR a request for www.proofs.enbphotos.com

THEN redirect it to  http://accounts.exposuremanager.com

• but it doesn't work, so either there is a problem (your apache doesn't redirect or some config has turned it off - or it could be that the proofs subdomain has a different document root.

[Matt-Williamson]

My mistake - I thought that was the code that enbphotos wanted to add to the .htaccess, however if that is the code it is pretty obvious that the rewrite engine is engaged Alan haha cheers. My apologies for misreading the response.

Other than that I agree with what Alan says...