TIP: Use a 301 redirect to prevent duplicate www and non-www URLs

My sitemap contained approximately 675 URLs, but an external site audit detected about 957 URLs. Canonical tags were already present, but both www and non-www versions could still be reached or discovered.

Adding a server-side 301 redirect to .htaccess forced all requests to the preferred www hostname:

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^clubtaxi\.nl$ [NC] RewriteRule ^ https://www.clubtaxi.nl%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

After adding the redirect and starting a new crawl, the audit began working with the expected group of approximately 675 pages instead of the much larger duplicate set.

I also redirect the old .com domain to the current English website:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?clubtaxi\.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^ https://www.clubtaxi.nl/en/ [R=301,L]

A few practical notes:

• Make a backup of the existing .htaccess file before editing it.

• Preserve any existing compression, caching or security directives.

• Test both HTTP and HTTPS and both www and non-www versions.

• Confirm that the redirect returns HTTP status 301 and does not create a loop.

• Check the file again after exporting or uploading with WebSite X5, because generated server files may be replaced.

Canonical tags are useful, but a proper 301 redirect prevents visitors and crawlers from accessing duplicate hostname versions in the first place.