Peter Vatistas

There were a couple good posts written a while ago about URL canonicalization and it’s importance for SEO. If someone wants to link to my blog for example, there are several ways they could do so:

http://peter-v.com

http://www.peter-v.com

http://peter-v.com/index.php

http://www.peter-v.com/index.php

https://peter-v.com/index.php

https://www.peter-v.com/index.php

 

The problem here is Google sees different links and weighs page rank on individual links, not on the domain (Google ranks pages, not sites). The solution to this issue is canonicalization using Mod-rewrite expressions in Apache or using a tool like ISAPI_Rewrite for IIS ($99).

Web servers running Apache, just open your .htaccess (I recommend just contacting your host) and add the following expression (remember to replace peter-v with your domain):

 

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond % ^peter-v\.com

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.peter-v.com/$1 [R=permanent,L]

 

The Rewrite expressions above state that the URL http://peter-v.com permantly changes to http://www.peter-v.com.

 

Web servers running Windows IIS with ISAPI_Rewrite, edit the .ini file and follow the same expressions:

 

# IIS Mod-Rewrite configuration file

 

#Turn IIS Mod-Rewrite engine on

RewriteEngine On

 

RewriteCond Host: ^peter-v\.com

RewriteRule (.*) http\://www.peter-v.com$1 [I,RP]

 

 

There you have it, now you can stop worrying about how people link to you and worry more about the anchor text they are linking to you with!! Here are a few real good posts and articles about canonicalization:

 

Matt Cutts

Chris Hooley

 

Also a good link that explains more about ISAPI_Rewrite expressions:

 

Scott Hanselman

Tags: .htaccess, Canonicalization, Canonicalize, Chris Hooley, ISAPI, mod rewrite, peter, peter-v.com, rewrite, SEM, SEO, URL