Duplicate content

Search engines might consider http://www.silktide.com and http://silktide.com different websites. This tests if a website is duplicated on the www and non-www URL.

Why do we test for this?

It is considered best practice for your website to appear on one domain only. This is also important for SEO.

How do we test for this?

We check if the web address being tested starts with www. or not in order to determine the alternative version. We try and view the alternate version of the website, and see how the web server responds. The possible outcomes are:

What can I do about it?

The ideal solution is to redirect visitors to the correct version of the site using a permanent redirect (301).