Topic: Solve canonical domain issue and Protect your Page Ranking

[SMc]

Hi,

The canonical domain issue can damage your search engine rankings because you appear to have two identical web pages with the same content. e.g.

http://www.giftofsound.co.uk/
http://giftofsound.co.uk/

...in other words, if you allow both of the options above to resolve, then your search engine page rank will be affected because search engines will see that as duplicate page content and demote accordingly.

To avoid this it is necessary to set up so that when someone types in http://giftofsound.co.uk the server makes a 301 re-direct to http://www.giftofsound.co.uk and your page rank is fine (a real example showing the re-direct in action).

It can happen by accident or if anyone (perhaps a competitor for your ranking) displays a link to the non-www version of your site somewhere on the internet.

This can be solved by using a 301 re-direct from the server from one to the other (doesnt matter which one you choose as long as there is only 1)

This example assumes you want to re-direct all non-www to your www.

First of all make sure you have uncommented the following line in the httpd.conf...

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Now insert the following code into the virtual host container of your httpd.conf, or in the \extra\httpd-vhosts.conf depending on your setup.

<IfModule rewrite_module>
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteLog logs/rewrite.log
RewriteLogLevel 9
#
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourDomain\.co\.uk
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^$
RewriteRule ^/(.*) http://www.yourDomain.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

NOTE: The RewriteLogLevel is set to 9 for development, but can be set to 0 for production to reduce log size

Now your server returns a search engine friendly 301 redirect and you have some protection.


Regards,

SMc

[DeliriumServers]

is there a way that you can have this automatically done for any domain name, like wildcard? so that I could use mod_vd and this together?

[SMc]

Hi Delirium,

...well the documentation link posted by Steffen suggests it can be used with mod_rewrite depending on the module execution order in the conf file.

So I would give that a test making sure the rewite example I posted earlier is first and then your mod_vd after that. Then I would expect the following:-

1 - Request to your server
http://domain.com/images/fred.jpg

2- Permanent Re-Direct
http://www.domain.com/images/fred.jpg

3- Appliy your mod_vd config (example from your other post)
F:/www/com/domain/images/fred.jpg

I believe a generic way to apply the mod_rewrite is to place it earlier in the httpd.conf and then put the following in your virtual host configs

RewriteEngine on
RewriteOptions inherit


Let us know if that works

Regards,

SMc

[DeliriumServers]

SMc,

Is it possible to create a rewrite rule that would redirect or remove the www before it was passed to mod_vd?

so if someone entered http://deliriumservers.com mod vd would send it straight to the correct folder

if someone entered http://www.deliriumservers.com mod_rewrite would remove the www before the request was passed to mod_vd

or if someone entered http://www.subdomains.deliriumservers.com mod_rewrite would remove the ww and allow mod_vd to function

basically mod_rewrite would just have to identify if www was at the beginning and remove it.

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it
Delirium

[DeliriumServers]

here's what works for me!!

you can put this inside your httpd.conf plain or in a virtual host, whatever, but get the rewrite rule ahead of mod_vd

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}$1 [R=301,L]

<IfModule vd_module>
VdEnable on
VdChopPrefix 1
VdChopSuffix 0
VdPathPrefix F:/www/webroot
</IfModule>


And it works!!!!! If there is no www, then it adds it, if there is it leaves it alone. With mod_vd set to just eat the www, everything works great!!