Locking the www in urls

dcz · Posted: Fri May 19, 2006 9:49 pm Post subject: Locking the www in urls

I thought it could be wise to start talking a bit about the www in URL.

The WWW :

what to choose ?

The solutions :

Apache mod Rewrite :

www.example.com

Code:

RewriteEngine on

First method : URL = example.com.

Code:

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

Note that if you experience problem with this code and your server, you can try getting rid of the "\", the $ and the [NC] in the RewriteCond.
The advantages of this method are, you won't mess with sub domains that could be physically hosted within the main domain ftp account.

Second method : URL !=www.example.com.

Code:

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

The same thing apply here withe the "\", the $ and the [NC] in the RewriteCond.
If for some reason this is the only working solution for your site and you have to deal with sub domains, then, you can just tweak the RewriteCond as follow :

Code:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www|sub1|sub2|sub3)\.example\.com$ [NC]

And keep the rewriterule. Anything not showing up in the list will be redirected to www.example.com/uri with a 301 http header.

PHP redirection :

Code:

$req_uri = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$req_domain = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
$sub = substr( $domaine, 0, strpos($domaine,".") );
if ($sub != 'www')
{
header("Status: 301 Moved Permanently", false, 301);
header("Location: http://www.example.com/$req_uri");
exit();
}

But this could mess up with some processes if not applied early enough. For phpBB, a good place should be in common.php, before the "?>".

Peter77 · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 1:20 am Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

dcz · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 1:37 am Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

Well, the www thing does apply to every type of URL, the duplicate matter will concern all cases.

By the way, I noticed a small typo in the php script, even though I am sure we can make it with mod rewrite. It's just that we have to find out how Very Happy

So did you try with :

Peter77 · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 1:51 am Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

dcz · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 1:52 am Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

was on this line :

sceltic · PR0 Joined: 04 May 2006 Posts: 55

dcz · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 2:12 pm Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

The important thing here is that the used code does the job we want.

sceltic · PR0 Joined: 04 May 2006 Posts: 55

Sorry for posting in two places

This might be working! but do you think it looks ok?

dcz · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 6:31 pm Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

Peter77 · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 7:13 pm Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

dcz, What could be the problem with my site not accepting the RewriteRule? is it bad hosting? maybe I can write to support of my hosting.. maybe there needs to be something done in order for it to work on my site?

dcz · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 7:18 pm Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

Well, before that, try all combination Very Happy

Have you tried without the ^.

I know this can look confusing, but this particular matter is hard to deal with, especially with many different server settings. Anyway, since mod rewrite is on, there must be a solution to achieve this goal.

Don't worry, we have time, this is not like the worst thing that can happen if for some time, you see some URLs without the www to be used on your site.

It's just something to take care of, because it will be better once done.

Peter77 · Posted: Sat May 20, 2006 10:06 pm Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

I think this works!

dcz · Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 10:10 am Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

Peter77 · Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 11:01 am Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

Sorry, what I meant was, that I happened to look at my sitemap.php and I see http://www.example.com/forum-sitemap-63.xml

I then paste and copy that to my browser and it takes me to another set of URL's but this time with viewforum.php at the end.
http://www.example.com/sucasa/viewforum.php?f=63

and Since I have viewforum.php blocked in robots.txt I wonderd if Google will be able to view or index it. but then you say that there was some errors in the release of the sitemap mod? so ok.. I will re download and find the changes.

Thanks!

dcz · Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 11:29 am Post subject: Re: Locking the www in urls

I am a bit confused here, because when I try to load you web site's url without the www, it works without adding the www.

Then, when I load your Google sitemap url, the output is not exactly the same as what I experience on other sites. The code is correct, but, the output is not shown the same way for the sitemapIndex than for the sitemaps.

have you changed something to the files ? Sorry, I did not opened the mx Google sitemap support thread, but if you experience further problems with this mod, just start a new thread, since this is about mod rewrite adaptation on it.

Then, you are not using the premodded files for phpBB SEO mod rewrite.
Re DL the pack and look in contrib/moded_4_mod_rewrites/phpBB_SEO_mod_Rewrites , your should use the phpBB advanced mod rewrite files instead of the regular one. This will change all your url from viewtopic.php?t=3381&start=15 to topic-title-vt3381-15.html, which are the only URL to consider in your case Wink