URL 101

[Ryan Kent]

I am a bit confused about where I went wrong in my XF install to cause any issues with my URLs. To the best of my knowledge all addresses in my site should be prefixed with "www". My board options appear as follows:



I was informed a recent issue on my site was caused by my forums being located at http://terapvp.com/community and not http://www.terapvp.com/community. Where else is this defined during the set up process? How can I fix it so all URLs have the same format?

 

[Paul B]

You need to configure .htaccess to force all URLs to either use www or not.

This may help: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/my-htaccess-file-to-redirect-non-www-to-www.8232/

 

[Ryan Kent]

I was thinking that might be necessary. Before I take that step I want a better understanding of how I screwed up my XF install in the first place? If my board URL shows my address as listed in the image above, why do my forums not have the correct "www" prefix? Is there another location this is defined?

My site is not "live" as of yet, it has no google index. I would prefer to properly fix the issue as opposed to using any form of redirect.

 

[Paul B]

It shows as prefixed with www for me: http://www.terapvp.com/community/portal/

Which URL are you using to navigate to your site?
If you use the non www URL then that's what will show.
If you use the www version then that one will show.

You have to use an .htaccess redirect if you want to force one or the other.

There is no other way of doing it.

 

[CTXMedia]

Hi Oracle,

Depending on whether you have access to your web server configuration or not, you could also remove the server alias for "terapvp.com" and make the web server only respond to requests for "www.terapvp.com".

However, redirecting with .htaccess using 301's redirect page codes is a better way of doing it since end-users will then be properly re-directed to your preferred site URL instead of getting a plain server error page. (As will Google and other search spiders ... )

The thread Paul referred you to shows you how to do this:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/my-htaccess-file-to-redirect-non-www-to-www.8232/

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Ryan Kent]

I appreciate the feedback.

Is it normal if I buy a domain, let's say www.abc.com that both "www.abc.com" and "abc.com" both point to my site? If so, is there any drawback to leaving this configuration? If not, is there something I did wrong? or failed to do during my set up to make it work this way?

 

[Paul B]

www is a subdomain of the main domain.
It's totally normal.

You just have to decide whether to allow both URLs to work or to force only one.
You do so using an .htaccess redirect.

There is some suggestion that using both may have a negative impact on SEO due to duplicate content from different URLs.

 

[ExpertPixels.com]

Is it normal if I buy a domain, let's say www.abc.com that both "www.abc.com" and "abc.com" both point to my site?

As Brogan has pointed out, it's normal.. for best search engine optimization you will need to select one method, www & non-www "http://" are viewed as 2 separate sites still (in this day and age one would think search engine companies would have resolved this by now, it's not the case tho) so for link building stick to just one method.. personally i prefer the non-www version "http:// site .com" others prefer to use "www . site .com" there is no real proof either one is more powerful, some will say www. is the correct way to do things.