Incorrect Server Setup related to URL ReWriting – Cause and Effect

[amin007]

First of all you need to understand the difference between the following two URLs:

http://www.example.com

http://example.com

Notice how the “www” is missing in the 2nd URL? In your eyes it may look like both the URLs are for the same site but apache will treat is as two different sites.

If you have some of your site pages that have the “www” version and some without the “www” then this could signal an issue. A web server could return completely different content for these two pages as they will have different PHP sessions. Not to mention that Search engines will index these pages as two different sites and the page rank will get split (not good from an SEO point of view).

The best thing to do is to choose one version either the “www” or the “non-www” and stick with it everywhere (this way you will have consistency).

You can easily make your URLs stay consistent with the help of “URL ReWriting of Apache” or use 301 redirect.

One thing to make sure is to check the “General Settings” of your WordPress and make sure that the value in the following two fields are consistent:

WordPress address (URL)

Blog address (URL)

If you setup the above two fields correctly WordPress will write the URL rewrite condition in the .htaccess file properly for you.

This URL has detailed documentation on apache URL rewriting:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/misc/rewriteguide.html

Site with HTTPS URLs

A similar issue can happen if you are mixing “https” and “http” URLs on your site. For example: if a member/user is logging into your site from a “https” URL then that user’s authentication data may not be present if the user browses to a non-https URL. So pick one version and then use that throughout your site.

You can use a plugin like the following to redirect all traffic to your HTTPS version.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/https-redirection/

[saraphis]

Thank you – I changed the default landing page from www to htttp and it works – I’m non technical as you can see! Please close

[Marfisk]

Thank you for this, and several other posts on the PayPal blank page issue. We’re currently waiting on confirmation from the customer, but I’m pretty sure this is the issue…sort of.

My client has two portals to her site, both separate websites with different things going on. The eStore makes up the key component of one, while the other has a different primary focus. So as not to confuse customers or make them think they’ve been hijacked, when a customer comes in through the second portal and wants to buy something at the store, they’re redirected to the store site, but the URL still shows the site where they were. However, if I’m right, this is the cause of the reported blank page. Is there any way to work around it? Or do we have to do the redirect visibly?

[admin]

Its best to do a clean redirection to the other site (hiding a site behind another one may trigger *phishing* warning to some customer’s browser and then you will lose the customer for sure). Also, PayPal won’t allow a user to perform checkout if the checkout is loaded using an iFrame.

[Marfisk]

Is that how mod rewrite does a persistent name? Okay, I’ll tell my client that we need to let the redirect show.

[Seb]

Hi!

Does it matter if i use a subdirectory like this?

wordpress URL: [http://www.domain.com/wordpress]

site url: [http://www.domain.com]

Note: www for both URLs

[admin]

Does it matter if i use a subdirectory like this?

Does it matter for what? There is nothing wrong with installing WordPress in a sub-directory if that is what you are asking. Your URL structure looks good to me.

[Seb]

Sorry for not being precise.

/////////

One thing to make sure is to check the “General Settings” of your WordPress and make sure that the value in the following two fields are consistent:

WordPress address (URL)

Blog address (URL)

/////////

I was just wondering whether a sub-directory in the wordpress URL only would count as “inconsistent values”, hence possibly corrupt my estore installation.

I take your answer as a “no worries, your set up is fine!”

Thanks for your help!

Seb

[Pamela]

Hi,

Was wondering if you can direct me on whether this is a problem for me ranking-wise also.

My URLs are consistent as you described above.

But, I have [http://booksbypam.com] set up everywhere except in my Google analytics account where it is [http://www.booksbypam.com]

Reluctant to pursue changing it as I don’t know the affect on my site. booksbypam.com traffic is showing up in analytics under [www.booksbypam.com] Never saw it as a problem before and don’t really know if it is now.

Thank you, Pam

[admin]

Your site automatically redirects to the non “www” version. So you should be good from SEO point of view.

[Pamela]

Thank you.

[Author]

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