Home Page Question - having www in URL or not

[agrahlma]

Recently I noticed the following:

My index page was listed in Yahoo as http://mydomain.com (missing www) rather than http://www.mydomain.com; with all of the sub-pages listed as URL's only.

Google (pr3) all pages indexed, but home page not listed.

While going through my website I noticed that some of my links (to the home page) were listed as /index and some as /. I've seen some blogs which indicate that crawlers will sometimes view this as two different pages; resulting in a penalty to the site for duplicate content. Is that a true statement?

thanks, Allen

[coop99]

Yes, there can be several versions of one page, for instance...

http://www.a-companyname.com/index.???
http://www.a-companyname.com/
http://a-companyname.com/index.???
http://a-companyname.com/

...are all the same page. If all these pages were indexed you may encounter dup content penalties or less rank based on similar pages already in the index.

You want to make ALL the links the same on your site so the crawlers do not get confused when indexing your site. Yahoos crawler is not that good at sorting the urls out itself so it's best if you do it for them and other bots.

You want to do some searches on 301 redirects if you cannot just change all the links within your site to reflect ONE version of your urls.

So if you choose the homepage to be http://www.a-companyname.com/, make the rest of the links like this...
http://www.a-companyname.com/page1.??? and not http://a-company.com/page1.???. Just make them all the same or redirect them all to one version permanently.

[coop99]

Recently I noticed the following

Recently noticed, or were recently helped by someone?

http://www.submitexpress.com/bbs/post-3818.html

lol, good luck with the issue and let us know if you need more help. Credit sites are a little harder to rank than some other sites due to the competition and SERP saturation. They rank, just not quickly unless you have a good amount of money to spend on a bigger promotional campaign.

[agrahlma]

Thanks Coop,

Last night I corrected my links so that they all point to one home page (index) address. Do I still need to add a 301 redirect at this point? If so, where would I place it?

You're right about credit card sites...this is my first website and it appears that I jumped into one of the more difficult industries.

No big deal…It's a new hobby at this point, and I'm having fun and learning a lot - not looking to make mega bucks off the site.

By the way from your viewpoint, does my site appear to be penalized in Yahoo or Google?

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate that you've taken the time to reply to my questions!!!

-allen

[coop99]

Allen-

Last night I corrected my links so that they all point to one home page (index) address.

Good job, that's what needed to be done!!

By the way from your viewpoint, does my site appear to be penalized in Yahoo or Google?

I would say you are OK in both, here's why...

Here is your url in Google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search

Here it is in Yahoo:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=www.re ... credit.com

Here it is in MSN:
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=si ... rch_type=0

Do I still need to add a 301 redirect at this point? If so, where would I place it?

It seems Yahoo now shows the pages ALL with www's, so I wouldn't attempt a 301 at this point since it is not like before and seems to be correcting itself. If Google showed many with and some without I would, but your site seems fine there too, so DONT worry about the 301's yet.

If Yahoo changes back a couple of times within the next week I wouldn't be too concerned as it is probably just in the process of getting re-indexed.

You're right about credit card sites...this is my first website and it appears that I jumped into one of the more difficult industries.

If you are able to "top" a competitive industry (any one of them), you open up all kinds of doors for yourself and prove that you are indeed learning to do SEO. Just because you started a little backwards (most people start niche for practice) doesnt mean that you won't be successful. I know people I thought would have NO chance ranking under certain terms, but yet I am constantly surprised by those that do. Just keep with your hobby and you will find a way that works for you!!

No big deal…It's a new hobby at this point, and I'm having fun and learning a lot - not looking to make mega bucks off the site.

Just keep learning and reading up on anything you can to gain more knowledge on the subjects that relate to your site and industry. The potential for you to turn your hobby into something more is definitely there and you seem to have talent so I say keep it up! Yeah, you wont make mega bucks within the first year usually, but after that things pick up and if you have done things right you do make DECENT bucks.

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate that you've taken the time to reply to my questions!!!

No prob, just spread the word and keep coming back for answers or to share strategies you have learned and tested.

[coop99]

Do I still need to add a 301 redirect at this point

I know I said in my previous post that you wouldn't need a 301?

I may have jumped the gun on that one since I figured Google had it right, but when I checked Google again they have the non-www version indexed and ALL the rest of the pages have the www's.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... credit.com

If they do not correct this themselves you may have to implement a 301.

P.S. Looks like Yahoo has it right so far, now all they need to do is add your titles and decriptions into the results.

[agrahlma]

Thanks…I'll give Google some time.

On the Yahoo side, the thing that still concerns me is this -- several pages which are listed with www. are no longer valid pages on my site (404 not found). This does not surprise me as I deleted some pages early in the site development. I still have this weird feeling that I'm banned/penalized. I've sent them some e-mails asking questions, and they responded promptly asking for my URL. In each case, I never received a response (after I sent the URL). My gut is telling me that they just delete e-mails from people who have banned or penalized sites. Note: It is worth mentioning, that I've never actually submitted my site for re-indexing (I think Yahoo gives you one shot), as I cannot be entirely sure that anything is wrong (aside from my corrected homepage error).

Sorry for the run-on, but the other twist is that MSN is not having any problems with my site at this time.

I suppose the best thing for me to do is sit back and wait.

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond!!!

-Allen

[agrahlma]

coop,

It appears that google has captured my updates, as my index page is now listed with the www. (also without the /index).

thanks again for the help!

-Allen