There are some very strong SEO benefits to standardizing the links to your website by removing the “www” from your URLs:
- Preventions Google search engine penalties for duplicate content
- Less bandwidth usage if you have many links per page
- Shorter URLs
Removing the WWW from your page URLs can be done in your .htaccess file so you won’t have to go to every page of your website and remove the “www” from your links. But going forward, it’s best to never use the WWW in your links or marketing material, since the .htaccess file will create a redirect, and limiting the number of redirects is always a good thing.
The .htaccess Code
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^domain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
And if you’d prefer to use “www” in all of your URLs, you can use this code:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Don’t forget to replace the “domain.com” text with your domain name! :-)
I recently read an article saying that people who consume 450mg or more of caffeine every day have increased odds of death, and a bunch of other bad health concerns. I wasn’t too worried, but that all changed last night. I walked in to my local Starbucks and before ordering my regular Vanilla Latte, I checked the caffeine content. 150mg. That seemed okay, until I noticed that a Venti cup of regular brewed coffee at Starbucks is 450mg. I usually drink two cups of coffee a day at that size! That doesn’t count the 45mg for every 12oz. of Diet Coke I drink, and most cups at fast food restaurants hold twice that amount.