No WWW Using .htaccess

There are some clear benefits to removing the "www" from your URLs:

  • Shorter URLs
  • Prevention of Google search engine penalties for duplicate content
  • Less bandwidth usage if you have many links per page

Luckily, removing the WWW from your page URLs (and subsequent Google listings) can be done inside your .htaccess file so that you wont have to go into every page on your website and remove the "www" from your anchors.

The .htaccess Code

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

Conversely, if you'd prefer to use "www" in all of your URLs, you can code:

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

Comments

  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. 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.

  5. 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 http://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.

  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!


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