One Simple Check for Your Website

This is more of a peace of mind check for your website, it takes one minute to check and could save you from losing customers.

It’s really that quick, let’s dive in!

 

Open a web browser and type in “http://www.lastdropofink.co.uk/” and press enter.

The site works and brings you back to the homepage.

Now open a new tab and type in “http://lastdropofink.co.uk/” (noting the removal of the www part)

See how the site still loads on both of these?

That’s is exactly what we need to happen, customers can type in both versions and we need them to be redirected to just one of these. If they’re not being redirected, the site looks down and that looks bad on us :(

Now do this for your website and confirm the same happens.

Sometimes only a single DNS entry is added in the domain name with your registrar (where you bought the domain name from) and that can be just the “www” record. So when a customer like me is lazy and misses out the “www” part to your domain name, if I’m being sent to a dead site, that to me (and ultimately your customers) looks like a dead site!

What you need to change to make this to work varies from website to website.

Sometimes it’s just a wildcard A record in your DNS settings (that’s the * symbol) and the website platform will work out the correct URL and sometimes you’ll need to update your website settings and possible the .htaccess file to redirect it for you.

If you’re confident in what you’re doing, this .htaccess rule will work for both http and https connections:

For www to non-www

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

For non-www to www

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

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

If you’re not 100% sure, just ask your web hosting company to point you in the right direction for the changes you need to make. You can also make these changes in your website platform, so it’s worth consulting the help sections for your website provider.

Personally I prefer the non-www version, hence this is why this site redirects back to the domain without www in it, but that really is up to you, I just like typing less.

For the sake of just typing your own web address in the URL bar at the top and checking that you’re being redirected, will give you peace of mind that at least the most, simplest of bases is covered.

If your site is OK and it is redirecting pat yourself on the back and if not, you’re now aware of it and can save customers from thinking your website is dead, when really it’s not.