I think google thinks i have two sites when i only have one

[ClaireH-184886]

Hi, i am a bit puzzled, i have just used http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/anchors?site=in2town.co.uk  to check my anchor text and forgot to put in the www.

and the information came up totally different from when i put the www.  in

it shows a few links for the in2town.co.uk but then when i put in www.in2town.co.uk it gives me different information, is this a problem and if so how do i solve this

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[Vivamedia]

Hi Diane!

There is a difference between www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com. Because of that you have to make sure Google and others see the version of your choice, with or withour www.

My recommendation:

Choose www.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com and then add a redirect 301 to make sure that visitors and search engines always see the same version of your site.

More reading about 301 redirects:
http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php

Good luck!

[TrevorJones]

Hi Diane

Looks like you need to set a canonical version for your site.

Importantly before deciding on either http://in2town.co.uk or http://www.in2town.co.uk you need to check if one or other has many more links or one has more authoritative links as redirecting will reduce the link juice passed.

You can set the canonical version in the .htaccess file on your site and also as a preference in Google Webmaster Tools.

If you let us know what server your site works on we can better advise you.

Very best wishes

Trevor

[TrevorJones]

Hi Diane

Just looked at the OSE numbers and going with redirecting to the 'www' version will be the way to go as you have many more links pointing to that version.

In OSE if you type in http://www.in2town.co.uk then 'add URL' http://in2town.co.uk then 'Compare Metrics' you'll see the difference between the two.

Very best wishes

[ClaireH-184886]

hi the one with www.in2town.co.uk has the most links. how can i do this in the htaccess file, never done it before.

[TrevorJones]

Hi Diane Just away from computer at the moment but will reply later with how to do it. I'm assuming you're running on a unix server? Cheers Trevor

[ClaireH-184886]

hi. i have asked my hosting company to do a redirect but not sure how i can test it to make sure that all the link choice from the in2town.co.uk is now going to the www.in2town.co.uk

i first noticed something was up when my site sometimes came up with in2town.co.uk and then other times came up with www.in2town.co.uk

hopefully now with all the great advice on here it will now be sorted

many thanks everyone

[TrevorJones]

Hi Diane

Don't worry about asking your hosting company I will let you know exactly what  you need to do, although likely to be tomorrow morning now

Very best wishes

Trevor

[ClaireH-184886]

thanks for that trevor

[TrevorJones]

Hi Diane

Just checked your homepage in a crawler and It looks like the 301 redirect is working. Not sure if you or your hosting company did it last night but certainly it's there.

If you type into your browser just 'in2town.co.uk' it redirects to 'www.in2town.co.uk'.

Very best wishes for the site.

[ClaireH-184886]

thanks for that. i mentioned it to my hosting company last night so they must have solved the problem. all i need to do now is to try and speed the site up otherwise i will be forced to buy a bigger dedicated server. many thanks for your help