No WWW Using .htaccess

Discussion

1. Martin

   Great tip! But what if I have several domains? This only works with one domain.
2. Mark Sanborn

   @Martin:

   This can work with multiple domains. Just change the domain name in the code. I use this same htaccess on all of my sites. It is an absolute requirement for my sites.

   @David:

   Just so you know the standard way to do it is to ADD the www. to domains and take away the www. on subdomains. Just in case you didn’t know the norm.

   As far as shorter urls, it really doesn’t matter because most people will just type the domain without the www. but it will be redirected to the www.

   Google now has the option in the sitemaps tool to specify which version of the domain you want Google to favor over the other. I recommend setting this first before changing the htaccess if you have a page that is already indexed and ranked.
3. Shawn

   I usually set it to add the www. I know the double-u, double-u, double-u, dot get’s redundant and really isn’t needed in todays web world, but it’s just a finicky decision on my part. :p
4. Leafnode

   Using RewriteEngine to do this is like using a cannon to shoot a fly. Much “lighter” solution is to make a dummy virtual host and redirect every request using RedirectMatch, like:

   ServerName www.example.com
   RedirectMatch 301 (.*)$ http://example.com$1
   

   Or, even lighter, you may use simple redirect to main page (no regexps), but it’d be confusing.
5. Martin

   @Mark:
   Yeah, off course…but I meant if I have several domains to one web site. For example, in Sweden we are strange and have three extra letters (å, ä and ö) and if I have a name with any of these in I have to get one address with the swedish letter and one with a or o instead.

   I know that I’m supposed to change the address in the example to my domain address.
6. Nate Moller

   Took your advice but for some reason it doesn’t seem to be working – this is the code I use on the last line, but it stays with http://www.:

   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://mollermarketing.com/$1 [L,R=301]

   thanks for the help.
7. Robert Dougan

   Very useful tip. Thanks!
8. Skracanie adresów

   @Leafnode stop exaggerate. RewriteEngine is the best way to do it.
9. Mike

   Heres an interesting one, I am in the process of moving a site from one host to another. My new server has apache userdir turned on so my site is visible on

   exampleserver.com/~mysite
   and
   mysite.com

   I have had a problem before with this sort of setup where google discovered both ways into the site and penalised me for duplicate content.

   Unfortunately I cannot turn Userdir off.

   Is there a way of preventing this sort of leak with htaccess?
   Thanks for any help :D
10. Ahmed

    You can also use this:

    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.+)$ [NC]

    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]
11. Sean K.

    So does it matter if google site: only indexes the domain without www? Example, I have channelkelley.com. All the pages are listed without the www, but none are listed when you use http://www.channelkelley.com. I guess that’s fine if google penalizes for duped content. I just want to ensure I’m getting the most mileage from the engines. :)
12. epsi

    Thank you so much David.
    Very useful to hide Joomla administrator App.

    I’ve combined and put your tips here.
    http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=432&t=418458
13. Henry

    Hi,

    What then is the code if I have only one site on my server http://www.villa-stbarths.com but I want any-one typing just villa-stbarths.com to arrive on the index page at http://www.villa-stbarths.com/index.htm ?

    Thanks, Henry
14. Jow

    Hey, I don’t think you need the “RewriteBase /” lin in there. It works fine for me without that line.
15. Rukki Odds

    Do not work for me :/ I’m tired of trying to dissappear www from my domain address.

    However I have mod_rewrite enabled (I can still make my joomla have Use Apache mod_rewrite enabled)
16. Matt

    Thanks David – this is the shortest and most concise explanation for running a site without WWW. It’s working like a charm on one of our new sites!
17. dinh vi

    I try it but it’s not work. When I try into www. but it don’t redirect to non-www
18. Andrew

    How do handle https pages as well?
19. Andrew

    How do you handle https pages as well?
20. La tienda del Sofa

    Thanks a lot , really usefull , and resolve the ^(.+)\/$ config

    Really thanks
21. Erwin Haantjes

    Although it might be sexy, do not use this when you want cookieless subdomains like a CDN (content delivery network) or to avoid cookies on other content of your page. Every subdomain and all content of your domain receives these cookies when landing on yourdomain.com, stylesheets, images, everything. This can be a performance gain like ,for example, this document is explaining – http://www.ravelrumba.com/blog/static-cookieless-domain/

    The landing page must http://www.yourdomain.com to avoid cookies on, for example, img.yourdomain.com.

    Google has also documentation about this, it is a part of Google Speedtest. That’s a very technical story but very interesting to read to avoid unnecessary overhead on your website. I followed this Speed Guide and have implement it at a couple of websites and results are amazing. Caching is also a good thing, safes more bandwidth, server doesn’t need the power before, sites are speedier even on shared hosting and especially on handheld devices.
22. Andrew Gates

    The issue I find with this is it does not well-support cases where there are multiple domains.

    I find this to be a more global and portable way of doing this (when such is needed):

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,QSA,NC,L]
    

    As you can see, this should work no matter the domain.
23. aminvalipoor

    i want to use non-www. and i used code below. but is not working.and i use joomla 3.

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^domain.com$ [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
24. Anno

    And I have your same RewriteRule with the R=301 first then L
25. yorumkalemi

    Are there any difference between

    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
    

    and

    RewriteRule (.*) http://domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]