URl display on Google's results

[rbknll]

Can somebody please tell me:
most of my pages on google are displayed without the "http://www." (ie: website.com) my homepage is displayed in full (as it displayed in the directories dmoz,yahoo etc) does this effect my rank? how? and how can I control it ?

Thanks.

[fathom]

Basically the www. is a commonly used sub-domain of the domain.com and almost always www. is a default.

In all likelihood someone has linked to you without using the www. and possibly a deep-linked page (not mainpage - thus Google assume parts of your website belong to another independent site.

A 301 redirect or mod rewrite will fix this.

[ronniethedodger]

Originally Posted by fathom

A 301 redirect or mod rewrite will fix this.

That is the first time I have heard of that. Do you have some examples on how to write the mod_rewrite or the 301 redirect? I kind of know how to do the rewrite...but I am not too clear on the 301.

If you have that handy, it would be helpful. Thanks.

[fathom]

W3C Recommendations:

Moved Permanently

The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs. Clients with link editing capabilities ought to automatically re-link references to the Request-URI to one or more of the new references returned by the server, where possible. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.

The new permanent URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s).

If the 301 status code is received in response to a request other than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.

Real use example:

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=3602

A general idea:

http://www.jimworld.com/apps/printab...ction::thread/

http://www.positionconcepts.com/foru...webmaster-101/

ASP sample:

http://www.seoconsultants.com/tips/asp/301.asp

Some quotes from Googleguy on this matter:

http://www.markcarey.com/googleguy-s...003_08_21.html

http://www.markcarey.com/googleguy-s...domaincom.html

Additional info:

http://www.jdhodges.com/log/1373

[ronniethedodger]

Thanks Fathom. This link was actually quite helpful http://www.jdhodges.com/log/1373 in particular. It seems you were saving the best for last. =)

I had always knew that you could use a 301 when changing domain names or if you wanted to cover variations on the domain name. It never occured to me that the same concept could be applied to the www issue which inevitably splits your PR.

Out of all the tricks of the trade that I have learned over the past months, this one ranks right at the top of the list. Thanks again.