Preferred domain

Hello. This is not a theme problem or wondering, but I don’t know who to ask else.

So some months ago I registered my domain: storypickers.com and alawys working on that. However if I ad www or without www still was working. Two days ago, I discovered that I should choice a preferred domain because google thinks there are two different of domains. However, I choice as my preferred http://www.storypickers.com (with www before) and after that I put a 301 redirect on .htaccess for everyone who goes to the version of my non-preferred domain, them will be redirected to my preferred domain.

That was a little introduction about what I did and why. I’m just wondering if is everything ok with that, and will google knows that both them are my domains?

Thnx, have a nice day 🙂

Yes, you should ideally serve ONE version of site, but normally you would setup your DNS to serve both www and non www, which it appears you’ve done, and then make sure your CANONICAL links say the one you want — this is one of the reasons that Google et al implemented the “canonical” link — this tells bots which link is the “real one” and which is another version, such as www or not www, amp, mobile, etc.

So, check your canonical links are showing on each page as the “actual” link you want the page to be “known as” and of course Google has tool to let them know also. But this needs to match on your site, your theme, your internal links, Google Search Console, G+ account, AdSense, etc.

Hi Chris. Thank you for your reply. Can you please tell me what are “canonical links”, does I need to do anything else? Becuause my site can open in both version with www or without www.

Does that means that I have to put rel=”canonical” in each links and posts?

• This reply was modified 10 years by adriatikxhelo8.

Google “what are canonical links” ?
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/139066?hl=en

Use something like YOAST SEO to add them.

View your ‘page source’ in web browser, to see what is actually ‘printed’ online in your HTML.

Thnx. So I have an idea what they are. But I should use them only in this case:

My website: http://www.storypickers.com
My post: http://www.storypickers.com/this-is-a-post/
If this post is in another category also then I should use rel=”canonical” right?

I think I dont have to use rel=”canonical” because all my posts are only in once category and I have removed the “category” name in a post. Is that right?

This was about posts. What about my domain name http://www.storypickers.com, does I need to put a rel=”canonical” somewhere?

Re-read the Google page

the canonical tag tells Google which version of the URL to any page on your site is the correct one

e.g.,
http://www.yoursite.ooo/name-of-post/

vs

http//yoursite.ooo/name-of-post/

are two different URLs

and if you move to https, that introduces yet another variation.

Using the canonical link on all your pages — as per the Google docs, and hundreds of online articles you can review to self-educate yourself, tells the world “which version” is the “primary actual defacto official one and only best link to use page” … this is how you remove any confusion for which is which, and also ensures no duplicate content issues. And if you move to https, changing the canonical helps instantly identify the new corrected URL to use for an existing page, regardless of 301 redirects.

Best of luck ! 🙂

• This reply was modified 10 years by simchris.

Chris thank you a lot for your time, even you are not part of Tagtiv’s team.

However:
1) I just selected my preferred domain to be the version with www
2) then, put a 301 redirect code in .htaccess to be redirected in this version (with www)

Now I’m reading this stuff about rel=”canonical”, which I understand why I have to use them but I don’t understand why I have to use them in each post? I have like 200 articles indexed, now I have to put rel=”canonical” in each of them? And for each post I will do I have to put rel=”canonical” also? Why I have to use rel=”canonical” when I already choose a preferred domain and put 301 redirect. All tutorials in the internet tells only these things which I already did, and tells nothing about rel=”canonical”?

Please, take your time and tell be this:

1) Does I need to put rel=”canonical” in each post?
2) How can I put rel=”canonical” in the domain link, not in posts?

P.S: I already have Yost seo pluging installed