Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/143040
items would be so similar it could be confusing to potential customers and search engines, alike. The Solution: To fix this problem and avoid it in the future, you should always try to load products that vary by only a few attributes as one product and list the attributes. This will eliminate the possibility of competing with your own site across multiple pages and allow one page to harness all the link authority.This also means you stand a better chance to rank higher in SERPS (search engine results pages) and you can successfully compete against other websites with the same item. WWW vs. non-WWW By default, many hosting accounts allow access to both the www and non-www versions of your website so you can choose your preferred domain. If you did not take the necessary steps to correct this when you first set up your site, search engines will attempt to index both versions of your web pages, creating duplicate content issues for a website right out of the gate. A quick and easy way to see if this is a problem for your website is to simply type your web address into a browser with and without the www like so: http://mysite.com • Pay close attention to the address bar in your browser as you hit enter to proceed to your website. http://www.mysite.com • Pay close attention to the address bar in your browser as you hit enter to proceed to your website. If the following occurred, you are in good shape: http://mysite.com turned into http://www.mysite.com and your website was displayed, and http://www.mysite.com did not change and your website was displayed. This means your website has been properly set up to use www as your preferred domain. If the following occurred, you are in good shape: http://www.mysite.com turned into http://mysite.com and your website was displayed, and http://mysite.com did not change and your website was displayed. This means your website has been properly setup to use non-www as your preferred domain. If the following occurred, you have a problem: http://mysite.com did not change and your website was displayed, and http://www.mysite.com did not change and your website was displayed. This means your website has not been properly set up with a domain preference and is very likely creating duplicate content issues for you. The Solution: Some CMS and shopping cart systems include features to fix this. If not, I recommend contacting your web host provider, as they will usually take care of this free of charge. If you are an experienced webmaster and prefer to handle it yourself, the instructions below can fix most websites in a matter of minutes. I must warn you: This section is recommended for experiencedwebmasters only, as it involves modifying the .htaccess file located at the root of the server, where your website resides. A slight error here can bring your entire website down! Modifying your .htaccess file If you prefer www as preferred domain, add these three lines of code to the beginning of your .htaccess to do a permanent 301 redirect: RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] If you prefer non-www as preferred domain, add these three lines of code to the beginning of your .htaccess to do a permanent 301 redirect: RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^mysite\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://mysite.com/$1 [R=301,L] Lastly, be sure to replace "mysite.com" with your actual domain name. Parameters in a URL Parameters are parts of a web address in a URL that are used by websites, CMS systems, and shopping cart systems for site architecture and tracking purposes. Additionally, webmasters may use parameters for added functionality to a site and marketers may add their own parameters to links for tracking purposes and to make better business decisions. Here's what a URL looks like without any parameters: http://www.mysite.com/ranges/ Here's what a URL might look like with added parameters: http://www.mysite.com/ranges?session_id=visitor1&cat=ran ges&source=blog As you can see, parameters are not only needed but can be useful to those running a website. Again, you and I will see continued on page 30 July/August 2013 29