Webmaster Tools

[Eye seven]

Morning,

Got a slight issue I need help with. I have set my new website up with Google Webmaster Tools and verified the site to start using the tools. Under site configuration there is a settings option where you can set up the preferred domain. I want to set up my site as www but when I hit save it says I have to verify my site as http://mysite.com. If I have it verified already (I assume under http://www.mysite.com) how do I verify again under the non www version? I have Googled for an answer but my Google powers have well and truly left me lately.

Any help would be great. The site has not been indexed yet so if I can get this sorted today I can stop and duplicate listings.

Cheers and Happy Christmas everyone.

PS Dont click the links - thats not my site just an example URL!

 

[Pho]

When you added your site to webmaster tools did you use www.example.com or example.com? If it's already www.example.com I imagine it should be ok.

Also, you might want to create a .htaccess file at the root of your site (public_html) and put this in it:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteCond %{HTTPS}s ^on(s)|
RewriteRule ^ http%1://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</IfModule>

(http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2097542/use-htaccess-to-add-www-with-https-support)

If someone access your site via http://example.com they get automatically forwarded to http://www.example.com. Google might also let your site pass validation if you do this.

 

[Eye seven]

Thanks Pho, I did use the www version when I did set it up. I have now found the solution although it seems a bit strange. I had to set up another account for the non www domain and verify that and then I could change the settings on the www account. I will do the htaccess file as well as you suggested so thank you for that.