URL Canonicalization Test

[forresthowie]

Hi everyone,
I've been running some SEO reports on my page and one of the errors I'm getting is this;

https://www.historicedinburghtours.co.uk and https://historicedinburghtours.co.uk should resolve to the same URL, but
currently do not.

Is there something here I need to do in Xara? The report gives this suggestion;

order to pass this test you must consider using a 301 re-write rule in your .htaccess file so that both addresses
(http://example.com and http://www.example.com) resolve to the same URL.
- If you want to redirect http://www.example.com to http://example.com, you can use this:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$
RewriteRule ^/?$ "http\:\/\/example\.com\/" [R=301,L]
- If you want to redirect http://example.com to http://www.example.com, you can use this:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.example.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Note that you must put the above lines somewhere after RewriteEngine On line.

I've no idea how to do this and just wondered if this was something I can 'sort' in Xara? If not, I'll start googling these thing. Just hoped there might be an easy fix!
Thanks in advance.

[Chris M]

htaccess files have nothing to do with Xara and are written and uploaded to your hosting independently.

They're simple to make, you simply open Notepad, copy/paste the code and save the text file as htaccess.txt. You then remove the .txt extension and upload it to your site.

Couple of notes:
1) You may already have an htaccess file, in which case, download it, open with Notepad, add the code and re-upload.
2) I wouldn't be sure if that particular htaccess would go in the root, or the public_html section. It does no harm if it's wrong, but better to wait for someone who actually knows.
3) You may have to show files that are hidden as some hosting services hide '.files'. If you don't see any files that start with .xxx then look around to see where it says 'show hidden' or 'show dot files'.

[Acorn]

The mapping ought to be part of your Service Provider's offering. Check there first, especially as you have already set up SSL.

Acorn

[Egg Bramhill]

I came across this the other day when searching whether to use absolute or relative url's. The second part explains concatenation fairly well but doesn't explain how to do this but an .htaccess file is my bet as well as using the same full absolute url references and not mixing them up.

Personally I prefer absolute urls as this also previews correctly in Xara's preview.

[Acorn]

I came across this the other day when searching whether to use absolute or relative url's. The second part explains concatenation fairly well but doesn't explain how to do this but an .htaccess file is my bet as well as using the same full absolute url references and not mixing them up. Personally I prefer absolute urls as this also previews correctly in Xara's preview.

Egg, the OP's specific problem is not addressed by absolute or relative addressing as described. All they do is provide cleaner linking for the current domain, regardless if it is subsequently changes from http:// to https:// or moved to a sub folder. A 301 Redirect is essential (https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/...-You-Care.aspx) but the service provider ought to have done this already.

@forresthowie Have a read of https://support.google.com/webmaster...er/93633?hl=en before plunging in.

Acorn