Rel-canonical

[AL123al]

Hi,

I am a bit confused. A potential clients website has three versions:

http://www.

http://

http://dev.

In each version they have used the rel=canonical back to each base version. So

http://www."

http://"

http://dev."

I would have expected duplicate content but I see only one version of the content when I check using "....." in Google. Using the site: tool  I see that all three versions are indexed.

When moving through the navigation on them, they all redirect to the one home page - the www version.

Any idea what is going on and what should be recommended?Redirecting all versions to the www. version? Is it a problem?

[Nlevi]

If content is the same through all of these versions, then I assume it would be good to have http://www." in all of the versions. Of course if redirect is an option, then that would be better.

[Ray-pp]

Make sure you have GWT set to the www version.

Make the www version the canonical (and 301 redirect) for the http:// version

Allow the http://dev version to canonical to itself. I also suggest no-indexing your development environment so Google doesn't index it, competitors won't as easily see it, and your customers do not stumble upon it.

[AL123al]

Thank you for your responses.