With www or without..Please help
 

I just realized i should not be letting my forum have 2 different domain. exp: www.myforum.com and myforum.com.

I know I should set up a htaccess file to direct one to the other so both are not active at the same time but which is usually preferred? Will this effects anything I have on the site? For example attachments errors or anything else?

Thank You

It's personal preference, really. I personally prefer the "www" version.

Thanks, i guess ill stick with that. I guess it does look nicer.

Thanks

I seriously prefer non-www

it's not a preference actually (like if the web was based on personal preferences)

Google is checking first if a mysite.com exists... if not, www.mysite.com is checked out and then google say it's impossible to find.

your server is supposed to manage www. calls, so it redirect to your site in the /public_html/ path. if you have no /www/ ALIAS directory below your /public_html/, ou can ask your webmaster to make one... (it's simply a alias of the /public_html/ path!)

.htaccess files are not handling the situation very well, just replacing the www. but that cause a sub-domain to be used and your site may have cookies problems if it is done.

and that is why it is important to have a redirect from one version to another, in order to eliminate the cookies problem.

But .htaccess does handle this problem very well with a really simple rewrite rule.

I dont normally agree with Nexi, but he is correct, the alias should be setup via apache, not using the htaccess approach and then symlink the www dir to the public_html directory, less work for apache than the htaccess rewrites, do to apache having to scan every time for a htaccess rule as the file exists.

@snakes, I think i am getting confused :p

By default, I always see www and non-www pointing to public_html folder. I never had to create an alias just for pointing www and non-www point to one location. I guess it depends on type of hosting. Doesn't happen on shared as its pretty much setup already.

By htaccess rewrite I meant, using JUST one version of domain i.e. either www or non-www in order to prevent problems like duplicate content and cookies. For example, I setup non-www as preferred choice in htaccess then a user would be directed to non-www version always, doesn't matter if he enter www in the url.

Thats because your servers running whm/cpanel and it did it for you when you set up your domain on the server, thats why you have a sym linked dir named www when you ftp into your domain.

www and non www is not duplicate content, its the same content.

ah okay.. thanks for the info. :)

your welcome

Ahha, so google searched for the non-www version first? So maybe they prefer the non-www version?

Anyway, what exactly should i ask my host to do to make the changes so I do not have to use the htaccess to make it non-www or www version?

Would they understand what im talking about if I ask them "the alias should be setup via apache, and then symlink the www dir to the public_html directory"? Lol, because i have no idea what that means. Also, how to I ask to make it non-www or www in the alias?

Thank You

I force the 'www' via an apache directive, but it also helps to include it in your vb general settings under the Site Name / URL / Contact Details section.

Also check your templates and ensure that they, and anything else you add to your site, uses the same URL. Sometimes custom templates are a problem.

It's possible to do it via .htaccess, but you might have to remember to re-edit it in the future if you did an upgrade.

Does Google display the www? ;)
I think they are worth to have their setup trusted...

google will check the www. after the domain because of the old technique... but if i remember the writings in the InternetII (which is not the Web 2.0), the www. will be dropped in the next years because it indicate purely that we're on the web and nobody ever use if for it's real purpose anymore...

btw, kronnos, you have it right with the simlink... alias is simlink.

www is unnecessary, but why not just support both? Just set the cookies via the admincp to set for your entire domain and then you can use www, not use www or use fuzzynavel. as the hostname.

I agree that www may become considered needless in coming years, but it helps me separate an actual website from it's supporting resources.

The reason why you wouldn't want to support both is that search engines may index the same page twice, with and without the www, which affects the importance/relevancy of the respective content. For example, a page that provides how-to information may compete with an alternative URL from your site elsewhere in the same search engine. If you force the URL (either way), then it is likely to be indexed with one URL and all of the traffic results go to the single respective URL.