Changing webiste.com to www.website.com

Xpand · May 15, 2013

Hi BHers,

I just created a new WordPress blog and in General>Settings there are:

WordPress Address (URL)
Site Address (URL)

But the link to my website is just example(dot) com
Can I just add www to both addresses and make it www (dot)example(dot) com?
Or is it more complicated than that? Is my first time learning things in WP, sorry if the question is silly.

I searched WP help and found a few solutions, but don't know which one has the least chance of messing any important settings in WP.

Thanks

IceHD · May 15, 2013

google "non www to www redirect htaccess" i can't post links.
I personally prefer non-www
You can use one or the othe but don't use both.

siteforwarder · May 15, 2013

icehd is right whta he preferres use without www, as anyone typing with www yoursite will come to your site, and without www, if your site has www, I don`t know, besides, it takes longer to crawl webpages, as there will be 2 types then with www and without.

badut jenaka · May 16, 2013

You can change directly from there, it will relogin after setting save. Well I personally like to use www. it just look more profesional in my eyes. lot of big authority sites use www. setting..

WayneInc · May 16, 2013

You can change it from the Godaddy Control Panel .. Also you can do that From Htaccess.You will find lots of information on Youtube.

t0xic.b0i · May 16, 2013

You should use without www, cause its annoying to type that..

carlikito · May 16, 2013

Keep in mind that the www. is a subdomain of domain.com. So www.domain.com is not the same as domain.com.

thedorf · May 16, 2013

carlikito said:
Keep in mind that the www. is a subdomain of domain.com. So www.domain.com is not the same as domain.com.

What? Never really thought about it but I cannot delete the subdomain www. so it must not be a subdomain. Still I agree it is not the same as domain.com. Don't do it OP!

carlikito · May 16, 2013

thedorf said:
What? Never really thought about it but I cannot delete the subdomain www. so it must not be a subdomain. Still I agree it is not the same as domain.com. Don't do it OP!

You can't delete it. What you do is that you specify the behavior of it in your DNS records. Usually it defaults to the root domain, but if for some reason you need to create a different sit or page (for example a coming soon or a maintenance page ) you can point the www to it and not to the root domain.

scorpion king · May 16, 2013

What ever with www or without that, it dosen't make sense. Both works good.
But, make sure while building backlinks you point your site as www. or without that. This is where most of the people make mistake.
They have there site as "www.domain.com" but they build backlinks for "domain.com".

mast3r0flol · May 16, 2013

Easy fix to your problem...

Just get a plugin for 301 Redirect.
I believe there is a plugin called "Redirection".

Install App.

Redirect the domain.com to www.domain.com or vice versa.

Xpand · May 16, 2013

Is a freshly installed blog, so I guess the default setting is to have a non-www address in both WordPress Address and Site Address?
(I'm using Hostgator for hosting and bought the domain at GoDaddy btw)

badut jenaka said:
You can change directly from there, it will relogin after setting save. Well I personally like to use www it just look more profesional in my eyes. lot of big authority sites use www setting..

Yes, that's why I want to change it to www
Are you sure I can just type www before my address there and it will be fine? I didn't see anywhere that I can just type it there. It usually involves editing .htaccess file or something else.

carlikito said:
You can't delete it. What you do is that you specify the behavior of it in your DNS records. Usually it defaults to the root domain, but if for some reason you need to create a different sit or page (for example a coming soon or a maintenance page ) you can point the www to it and not to the root domain.

Hey carlikito, I'm not yet experienced in WP, so can I just add these lines to .htaccess file that I edit from HostGator cPanel>File Manager

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mywebsite (dot) com
RewriteRule (.*) http: // www (dot) mywebsite (dot) com/$1 [R=301,L]

Is this the right way to do it?

Xpand · May 16, 2013

Ok, I did it, here is how to change Site Address (URL) safely:

1. Cpanel > Login into PHPMyAdmin
2. Click on the database you want on on the left
3. Find wp_options and click on Browse
4. In the option_name column search for siteurl and click on Edit (far on the left)
5. In the option_value you will see URL, change it to whatever you want (I added www). Than click Go
6. It will return on the previous screen, than go down and click the arrow button to go to the next page
7. Search for home, you will see the same URL, than edit that one as well
8. Than go back to your WP dashboard > Settings > General, and you should see that your URL has changed.

WPRipper · May 16, 2013

WTF is all these comments about htaccess and all that ? This can be done from WordPress it self, no plugins, no cpanel , no phpmyadmin... Damn. Change those 2 values from Settings and ur good to go.

belibis · May 16, 2013

redirect.
fyi, big company such as google yahoo facebook using 'www' , so hey i dont know what it meant but basically i go with the flow.

Xpand · May 16, 2013

RedDeezer said:
WTF is all these comments about htaccess and all that ? This can be done from WordPress it self, no plugins, no cpanel , no phpmyadmin... Damn. Change those 2 values from Settings and ur good to go.

Looking at all the comments and questions from forums etc. when people just change those 2 values, they can't access their website, it doesn't even load.

So I just edited it from PHPMyAdmin, is 5 clicks and that's it.

Changing webiste.com to www.website.com

Xpand

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IceHD

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siteforwarder

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badut jenaka

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WayneInc

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t0xic.b0i

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carlikito

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thedorf

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carlikito

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scorpion king

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mast3r0flol

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Xpand

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Xpand

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WPRipper

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belibis

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Xpand

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