You should redirect all visitors to your website to the "www" top level domain.  (Unless, of course, the website is on a subdomain.)  The R=301 part ensures search engines will update your search engine listings without penalty.

 

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

 

Why?


  • CloudFlare (via CPanel) filters traffic to "www".
  • It will avoid duplicate content (and a penalty) in Google.
  • It will avoid splitting page rank or split link popularity (inbound links).