According to Matt Cutts, Google Engineer, canonicalization is the "process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages." 

Cutts continues to explain that "…when Google “canonicalizes” a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set."

So for example, the search engines consider fabianlim.name, www.fabianlim.name and  fabianlim.name/index.php to be different web pages, even though they all serve up the same content.

This results in a link popularity "split" between URLs and will affect the effectiveness of your search engine optimization efforts.

One solution to fix this problem is to perform a 301 redirect via the use of htaccess.

Two versions of the .htaccess solution exist, a generic and non-generic solution.

First, try the generic version because it does not require any modification of the code at all. 

If the generic version does not work, you can try the non-generic version.

If your website already has a .htaccess file on the server, I strongly recommend  first you create a backup version of the file on your local computer in case you mess up the codes accidentally.

So, to redirect the non-www version of your URL to the www version,  copy and paste one of the two 3-line codes below into an empty text file and name the text file as htaccess.txt:

Version 1 (Generic Version)

(More user-friendly especially if you have multiple websites since you don’t need to insert your domain URL into the code below)

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

Version 2 (Non-Generic Version)

(Be sure to change example.com to your domain name and be careful NOT to add/delete spaces or add/remove any of the symbols in the code)

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

Note: For either versions to work, Apache mod_rewite needs to be enabled by your web host

Upload this htaccess.txt file onto your web directory (typically public_html for cPanel servers).

Change the file name from htaccess.txt into .htaccess (i.e. place a dot in front of htaccess).

Test the results of this change by typing the non-www version of your domain using a web browser.

If the above steps have been implemented correctly, the non-www version will redirect to the www verion of your domain.

That’s all to it!

If you have been struggling to create a website that looks good, but have zero HTML knowledge, XSitePro2 website builder software may be the answer you have long been waiting for.

XSitePro2 is a web site design tool that has been specially designed with Internet marketers and online businesses in mind – and the best part is XSitePro2 is a perfect tool for both beginners and experienced power users alike!

You’ll be blown away when you see the list of beautiful website templates that come with XSitePro2! 

Imagine being able to create a website using one of the above templates even if you have ZERO HTML knowledge!

A video demo is available on the XSitePro2 homepage that explains in easy to understand manner, the features and benefits of the website design software.

For a very limited time, you can grab XSitePro2 at a $100 off the normal price.

I highly recommend you get your hands on this amazing website builder software, because I personally use XSitePro2 to build my websites:

Visit: http://www.xsiteprosoft.com now and save $100 off before the limited time offer expires!

The good news is XSitePro version 2 is now available to the public!

Developed by Paul Smithson and the team at Intellimon Ltd, XSitePro2 has been a long anticipated release.

The question that remains to be answered is, "Is XSitePro2 The Ultimate Website Builder Software?"

And my answer would be an absolute "YES!", especially for internet marketers.

Having trained over 3,000 students over the past 3 1/2 years, it is clear to me that one of the greatest technical challenge faced by many new internet marketers is that of building a multi-page website that not only looks good, but is also search engine friendly.

Before XSitePro came along, the most common way of creating a multi-page website was to:

1) Purchase a template from a site like Template Monster or DreamTemplate 
2) Use a professional HTML editor like Dreamweaver or a free HTML editor like NVU to edit the template.
3) Upload your web template to your web host using a free FTP software like FileZilla

The major problem with the above method was that even editing a web template was not an easy task – because most of the templates available for purchase required you to modify the "source" graphics using a graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop. And this meant if did not own Photoshop or didn't know how to use Photoshop, the probablity of you creating a multi-page website would be close to zero!

Then came along a new generation of "online website builders" like WebsiteWizard where you pay a monthly fee to create and maintain your website. While these solutions make it far quicker and easier to get your website online, there is a monthly fee you will incur. Nonetheless, online website builders are great for internet entrepreneurs with a single web business because they don't have to deal with the technicalities of web hosting setup, FTP etc.

XSitePro Version 2 is really a cross-breed of the wesite template and online website builder – and represents the best of both worlds!

And here's why…

Firstly, XSitePro2 is a software you purchase only once, so there's no monthly fee involved.

But what makes XSitePro2 stand out from its competitors is the fact that you can create a fully-functioning interactive, and search-engine friendly website WITHOUT needing to know HTML at all! Its "point-and-click" ease of use is amazing - if you know how to use a word processor like Microsoft Word, you'll be fine with XSitePro2!

Another strong feature of XSitePro2 is its beatiful set of 200 web templates that cover a wide range of web businesses. This is a marked improvement over XSitePro version 1.

What's really cool in version 2 is it's auto-posting feature, where XSitePro2 will publish articles to your website on a time release basis – just like an autoresponder. You just need to tell XSitePro where your files on your hard-drive are, set a posting schedule and let XSitePro do the rest!

And probably the most valuable feature in XSitePro2 is its content syndication capabilities. XSitePro2 boasts, "1000 sources to start you off (and you can learn about millions more at our support forum). In finance, for example, choose from The Financial Times, BBC News, MSNBC, ABC, The New York Times, or hundreds more."

The full feature list for XSitePro2 is really too numerous to list in detail, and here are some of my favorite XSitePro2 features:

Create unlimited websites
There’s no limit to how many sites you can create, maintain and organize using the power of XSitePro

Hundreds of *NEW* website templates
A brand-new selection of quality website templates, professionally designed to help you create great-looking sites, fast. This means that your websites appearance will rival those created by the finest graphic designers! 

Automated Navigation Menu Controls
Makes your site navigation a breeze to set up, complete with sub-pages and category headings. Page interlinking is handled automatically to ensure ease-of-navigation as well as improve search engine rankings. What this means for you is that you can effortlessly create websites with state-of-the-art navigation … no matter how big the site grows, it’s easy to find anything on the site!
 
Advanced Page Settings: Scheduling
Create content in advance and have pages publish only during a specified date range. Use in conjunction with the Taskbar Scheduler to time-release your content to the Web! 

Updated Right-Click Designer Menu
The power-house feature in the Designer window – this tool now contains links to a huge array of powerful page content features. Menu Options now include Headings Design Wizard, Sub-Headings Design Wizard, Boxes and Frames Design Wizard, B ullets Design Wizard, Graphics Design Wizard, Buttons Design Wizard, Highlighted text, Snippets,  Image Library, AdSense Advertising,  Amazon Advertising,  Oxado Advertising,  PayPal Advertising,  Audio Wizard, Video Wizard, Widget Wizard, RSS Feed Wizard, XML Syndication Links, Social Networking Links, Forms Wizard, Site Search Form Tool,  Page Breaks Tool, Link Insertion Tools, and more…  
 
Improved Designer WYSIWYG interface
Now featuring additional tools and functionality to deliver the best possible quality of page content with minimal fuss and complication. Designer window now set to Main Panel Width and featuring additional menu buttons including Design Wizards, Snippets,  Advertising,  Audio,  Video,  Widget Wizard, RSS, XML,  Social Networking,  Forms,  Search, and Page Breaks  
 
SEO Analysis of your pages
Automatically analyses your web-pages for you and suggests a whole range of improvements necessary to improve your search engine positioning. A great way to ensure your site gets seen in the search engine rankings. Completely redesigned in version 2 as part of the new “Page Analysis” tab.

Follow the simple instructions given in the SEO Report. SEO means Search Engine Optimization. That is a fancy way of saying that the search engines expect to find certain things on your web-pages, and if they do find them, your website stands the best chance possible to rank high. And high rankings mean profitable websites.
 
Page Components Analysis
A summary view on the main Page Analysis tab, with a detail screen available on clicking the “view detail” button – this analysis breaks down your page content for review. Features Graph displays (enlargable),  Page File sizes / Elements statistics,  Page component lists: Headings, Images (with pop-up image-checker).  
 
Readability Analysis
Page text analysis – including full Flesch Kincaid scoring of your page content, helping you communicate your message clearly to the greatest number of your web-site's visitors. 

Publish your site with just two clicks
Having only entered your publishing settings once – Make updating your site a snap! 

Full Sitemaps
Automatically created for your visitors’ ease-of-use, complete with page titles and descriptions. Also useful for ensuring your whole site gets indexed by search engines. New features include additional site map structure options (a new map style as well as features such as Pagination) as well as global style settings for making your Sitemap pages look great.

When your site grows large, the search engines like Google and Yahoo and MSN and ASK have more difficulty finding everything. The new sitemaps automatically created by XSitePro2 make it virtually certain that every part of your website is easy to find … by your visitors AND by all the search engines that will bring you more visitors.
 
Site Import and Export Functionality
Powerful tools allowing you to export your whole site, graphics and publishing details included, as a single XSE file for importing at the other end. Bring in a new site, edit it and hit publish – perfect for job-sharing/collaboration. Improved interface including site design preview as part of the import process. 

Find & Replace on all pages
Update page content site-wide with this multi-page text search/replace tool. New version searches pages in the ‘background’ rather than in view. 

Insert Tokens
Insert variables into your pages which will be updated at the time of publishing. When used in conjunction with multi-page creation wizard can give you a valuable head start on your page content. 

Affiliate link wizard
Store your affiliate links in XSitePro and they’ll always be to hand ready for inserting in your pages in seconds. It’s right-click simple. 

Paypal Integration
Sell products right off your web pages with this PayPal “Buy Button” Wizard. Easy to set up and something that could see you generating sales quickly from your pages. 

Google Adsense
Monetize your web-pages with Google Adsense – fully integrated in XSitePro for ease-of-use. Get relevant adverts on your pages which can earn you money on autopilot. Updated to include ‘rounded corners’ feature. 

Amazon Product Advertising: Product Link
Insert Amazon product links, and monetize your page content, using this new tool. 

Amazon Product Advertising: Self Optimizing Adverts
Insert Amazon Self-Optimizing Adverts, and monetize your page content, using this new tool. 

Amazon Product Advertising: Recommended Products
Insert Recommended Amazon Products, and monetize your page content, using this new tool. 

Snippets
Stores all of those useful bits of code and signatures, etc., in the handy Snippets Library – then quickly insert them from the right-click menu when designing your pages.  

Clipart Library
Insert pictures from a royalty-free selection of hundreds of clipart images, and bring your web pages to life. 

Audio Wizard
Embed audio into your page content, complete with playback-controls and auto-playback functionality. 

Video Wizard
Liven up your web-site with Web 2.0 features including video, using the powerful video wizard. 

Forms Wizard
Add quality name-grab forms to your pages in seconds using the new Forms Wizard. Even enables you to create forms which will submit to you by e-mail, XMailPro, AWeber, Get Response™ or ListMail Pro™. 

RSS Feed Wizard
Add quality RSS content into your pages to help keep them fresh, refresh your content and bring your visitors back over and over again. Choose from hundreds of pre-supplied feeds – simple to insert – and create your own, using this powerful tool. 

Widgets Wizard
Huge range of enhanced scripts added in XSitePro v2.x for your convenience. Choose from scripts such including Banner Rotator, Image Gallery, Image Rollover, E-mail Cloaker, Jumping Text, Password Redirect, Random Quote, Open Page in New Window, Sticky Note, Status Link, Status Scroller, Status Slide-In, Title Scroller, Add to Favorites, Close Window, Print Page, FAQ, N ews Scroller, Countdown, F uture Date, Last Visit, Time of Day, and Today’s Date  
 
Automatic Page Breaks
Break up your longer web pages, and add to your page-count in the process. Also features automatic pagination of the resultant pages, making it easy to navigate published pages. 

Breadcrumb Trail
Insert advanced navigation features in your web pages using this tool – allow visitors to keep track of where they are in your site structure at any time and improve the overall navigation experience. New layout for Version 2. 

Links Manager
Completely rewritten, and replacing the Links Page of v.1. This powerful tool is for creating multi-level links pages – great additional content with minimal effort for your site. Create a style once then all new links are added into your existing pages. Other features include:

Popups
Create powerful pop-ups that will get through to your visitors. Completely customizable and very effective – now enhanced in Version 2, with a seven step wizard to make it easier to create quality PopUps. 

Site Search Form
Add search functionality to your site, making your content easier to navigate with this in-built search form wizard. A great way to improve the accessibility of your site.

Even some of the largest websites have to rely on Google to search inside their websites. With XSitePro2’s site search wizard, your visitors can search for any word – and your site delivers! Just one more way to demonstrate that your site was built by a pro!
 
Google XML Sitemap Submission
Create and submit a Google Sitemap – essential to your Google ranking – using this simple tool. Update includes restyled, tabbed interface for greater ease-of-use. 

Siloing
A power-feature for advanced users – for creating search-engine-optimized interlinking structures within your site. You will learn more about this fantastic feature in the user’s manual. 

Redirect Pages
Create custom redirects in seconds – a great tool for masking affiliate links with more ‘friendly’ URLs. Redesigned to make the screen clearer and simpler to use. 

External Links Tool
Add links to external sites for inclusion within the navigation menus throughout your site. Screen redesigned – also now gives the option to launch linked page in a new browser. 

Mobile Site Wizard
Output your site automatically formatted for mobile phone / WAP browsers. With the growth of mobile web usage this is a great way of widening the appeal of your site.

850 million people view web pages via their cell phones. Your mobile site wizard makes your entire site nicely readable for them. This is one more competitive advantage you will have over your competition!
 
XML Page Syndication
Quickly create syndicatable RSS feeds from your page content – a great way to build traffic from your existing content.

“XML” and “Syndication” are fancy ways of saying that when you put something really good on your website, you can offer it up to the entire internet. If a big, popular site picks up your content, then you can expect a flood of new visitors to your site to see what other interesting things are there. New visitors means new opportunities to boost your profits.
 
Social Networking Links
Quickly insert a variety of social networking links into your pages so that they become instantly viral. 

PLUS! 

Full 260-page “Essentials” instruction manual
Everything you need to know to start producing great looking sites, right at your fingertips in this comprehensive technical guide to XSitePro. 

1000-Page Advanced User Guide
A focused reference guide to using the new features within XSitePro Version 2 

Full Walkthrough tutorial
A 140-page step-by-step walkthrough, designed to get you up-and-running with the application as quickly as possible. 

Dedicated technical support
24×7 Support ticket system manned by our friendly, professional support staff 

Dedicated user forum
Our 12,000 users have already registered on this forum and have posted over 35,000 articles. If you have a question or are puzzled how something works, chances are you will find experienced help in under an hour.

In summary, if you have been waiting for the ultimate website builder software, the time is now!

Grab yourself a copy of XSItePro so you can spend more time creating valuable content for your website visitors and save yourself the agony of trying to figure out complicated website templates!

Visit http://www.XSiteProSoft.com for more details!

Highly Recommended!

Fabian Lim

Related Article:

XSitePro Templates – FREE Premium XSitePro Template

Google Page Creator is a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) HTML website publisher, meaning you don’t need to know a thing about HTML, or FTP for that matter, to create a website.

Screen shots of the “Page Manager” can be seen here:
http://pages.google.com/-/screen1.html

and screen shots of the “Page Editor” can be viewed here:
http://pages.google.com/-/screen2.html

And here’s the kicker…

Any website created by Google Page Creator will be automatically indexed by Google’s ‘spider’ and therefore appear in Google’s search index in a matter of minutes!

No need to submit your website to Google!

Unfortunately due to high demand, you’ll need to sign-up to be placed on the waiting list for a Google Page Creator account.

So head over to Google Page Creator quickly, so you can reserve an account for yourself before the rest of the internet finds out about it!

Here’s the URL link to Google Page Creator:
http://pages.google.com

Fabian Lim

P.S. Several interesting comments have been posted.

P.P.S. Have something to say? Post them here!

A navigation menu is an important element of a website.

A good navigation menu helps your visitors navigate through
your website efficiently – in as few mouse-clicks as
possible.

You can think of a website navigation menu like the “Table
of Contents” of a book.

And the greater the number of web pages on your website,
the more important the role of a website navigation menu.

Another important benefit of a navigation menu is it
optimizes the internal linking structure of your website
and allows the navigation menu links to rank better in
search engines, since all web pages will be pointing to it.

(For example, if your website has 1000 web pages, each
navigation menu link will have 1000 web pages pointing to
it. This will result in the navigation menu links ranking
higher than the other web pages)

Here’s how you can use this knowledge to improve the
search-engine rankings of selected web pages – Simply
include the selected web pages as links in the navigation
menu and you’ll automatically have the rest of the web
pages pointing to them.

And finally, here’s one method you can use to easily create
a website navigation menu – Using Server Side Includes
(SSI).

What are Server Side Includes?
——————————
Server Side Includes (SSI) are simply instructions (also
known as “directives”) that are included in a HTML document
to execute a specific command e.g. inserting the content of
an HTML file.

The SSI directives are “processed” at the Server side,
before it reaches the requesting browser (hence the name
Server Side Includes).

As a result, the “processed” SSI directives merge
seamlessly with the HTML file.

Here’s an example of SSI in action at a website (i.e. the
left navigation menu):
http://www.BizSuccessOnline.com

Notice the left navigation menu is made up of static HTML
links.

This is to allow search-engine spiders to crawl through the
website to discover other web pages (via the navigation
menu links).

An alternative solution to get your web pages spidered by
search-engines is to use a sitemap.

A sitemap is simply a webpage that contains links to every
webpage on your website and should be linked from your home
page.

This will provide the search-engine spiders a path to
follow and will ultimately result in your web pages getting
fully indexed.

Note that most, but not all servers have SSI’s enabled.
Please check with your web host to find out whether SSI is
enabled in your server.

How to Easily Create a Navigation Menu Using SSI?
————————————————-

Step 1# – Create a HTML navigation menu file

This is the navigation menu file that will be inserted into
your HTML pages and is also your HTML navigation menu
template.

A simple horizontal text HTML navigation menu can look like
this:

Home | Products | Pricing | About Us | Contact Us

(You’ll need to hyperlink each of the above text to make
these navigation links clickable by using your favorite
HTML editor e.g. FrontPage or Dreamweaver)

You need to save this file with a .shtml extension once
this file has been created e.g. topnavi.shtml

Step 2# – Insert navigation menu file into HTML file

Open up the HTML file (e.g. products.html) and place the cursor on the location where you wish to insert the navigation menu.

Click here to view the SSI directive:
http://BizSuccessOnline.com/SSI_CodeSnippet

And copy and paste the above SSI directive at the cursor.

(Be sure to replace “your_navigation_filename.shtml” with the name of your navigation menu file)

Note: You CANNOT use absolute path with an SSI directive:
e.g. Do not use http://yourdomain.com/topnavi.shtml

And finally, save the HTML file with a .shtml extension e.g.
products.shtml

Step 3# – Upload files onto your server

The last step is to upload the newly created .shtml files
onto your web server and check to make sure the pages
display properly.

And if you view the HTML source code of your HTML file on a
live internet connection, you’ll notice that the SSI
directive would have
been replaced by the actual HTML navigation menu code.

Maintaining your navigation menu is now a simple matter of
changing the contents on the navigation file.

That’s all there is to it!

Give it a go!

==============================
Fabian Lim is a Web Analytics & Internet Marketing Consultant.
He helps organizations and individuals succeed online.
Visit his website at http://www.BizSuccessOnline.com and
blog at http://www.fabianlim.name
==============================

** Attn: Ezine Editors/Site Owners **

This article may be freely distributed in its entirety as long as the content, links and resource box above remains intact. If you use this article, please send me a brief e-mail to let me know where it appeared:
e-mail: fabian (at) bizsuccessonline.com