WARNING: THIS POST IS FOR GEEKS ONLY. OTHERS READING THIS POST MAY SUFFER FROM EYE GLAZE AND FEELINGS OF ONCOMING VOMIT. Sorry we used the word vomit.
We always preach about making sure your htaccess file is setup correctly so that when you type “domain.com” into the browser it automatically redirects to “www.domain.com”. This is to eliminate duplicate content penalties from the search engines. No, it doesn’t make any more sense to us than it does you… but it is what it is.
So, when we set up our site, we were sure to make this a top priority. However, I was speaking with one of my friends in the SEO industry this morning and she informed me that our were not set up properly. But I KNOW that they were… I did them myself, darn it!
She was right.
So, I started investigating and found this post on the issue.
To summarize it, when you install W3 Total Cache (a plugin used to speed up your sites load time dramatically) it moves the redirect coding to the bottom of your htaccess file, changing the prominence. Problem!
But, you can fix it easily by simply installing wp htaccess, a plugin that allows you to edit your htaccess file without ftping anywhere.
Thought I would share this little experience… hopefully it’ll make your life a little easier.
