SEO advice: url canonicalization

Thanks to MaxD for posting this..
You index page gone MIA Dave

well it looks like google has it’s url canonicalization problems back again.. ok I show you how I would fix it.

first off, what is a Google url canonicalization error, well it’s when Google miss handles your url.

www.davidnaylor.co.uk v davidnaylor.co.uk.

well I www.davidnaylor.co.uk has Ranked #1 for DaveN, dave naylor and david naylor for ages.. and today I see this.

not good I guess. ok so this is what i’m going to do
a) setup a 301 in a mod rewrite ..

[code]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L,QSA]
[/code]

b) set the www default in Google Webmaster Tools (sitemaps)

c) wait and see what happens, of course it could be a ban or something maybe Matt didn’t like me offering seo advice to my readers or the fact I got more readers than him heheh :) .. lol

DaveN

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8 Comments | Leave a comment »

  1. 1. ukgimp | October 19th 2006 @ 9:50 am

    if you only have access to htcaccess which a good number will only have then you can do the following:

    http://www.threadwatch.org/node/2817#comment-16701

    I am not sure why they struggle with this.

  2. 2. Mikkel deMib Svendsen | October 19th 2006 @ 11:20 am

    > if you only have access to htcaccess which a good number will only have

    Except for all the ones on IIS - they usually have access to nothing (unless its dedicated server where they put an ISAPI filter on) :)

  3. 3. ukgimp | October 19th 2006 @ 12:11 pm

    i was going to mention the poor buggers on IIS, but they are animals, so who cares lol

  4. 4. Eric Enge | October 19th 2006 @ 12:54 pm

    Dave,

    It’s worse for you here (in Boston). You come up 8th for the same search. You can see the screenshot here:

    http://www.stonetemple.com/images/DaveNaylor.gif

  5. 5. SarahG | October 20th 2006 @ 10:14 pm

    IIS users can use PHP or ASP to create a 301 header redirect. If you scroll further down in the threadwatch link posted by ukgimp you’ll get the PHP for it - http://www.threadwatch.org/node/2817#comment-16721

  6. 6. Brian Mark | October 23rd 2006 @ 3:27 pm

    Wow… you’re so cool that I can buy you on eBay. I guess that’s just one-upping Dax, who only sold his moustache. Good show.

  7. 7. Nate K | November 2nd 2006 @ 6:45 pm

    The approach you describe will work perfectly. I have been doing this with my domains for years now, and it helps with both analytics and SEO.

  8. 8. Richardb | November 5th 2006 @ 3:58 am

    UKgimp hates the poor people on IIS. You used to be poor once!!! ;)

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