Two sitemaps, which is correct? am I being hacked?

I am using sitemap 3.0 and visited my webmaster tools page on Google. I see two sites website.com and www.website.com is this normal? (both are the domain name, one has the "www" the other does not)

Both seem to have been updated at the same time, December 10, but both have VERY different content. For example, for website.com under "crawl errors", I have 165 not found, 91 restricted by robots.txt, 1 Timed Out, and 1 Unreachable. For www.website.com, for crawl errors for same period, I have 3 HTTP, 134 In Sitemaps, 9,112 Not Found, 85 Restricted by robots.txt, 6 Timed Out, and 43 Unreachable.

What also has me confused is some strange sites that are linked to me that I have no idea how they are doing it. When I click on the link it goes to their forum and I cant see how they are linking to me..is this some sort of hack?

Thanks for any help

You should set your preferred domain in webmaster tools and make sure you redirect the other to the root choice, and then delete the duplicate sitemap.

Ohhh K..how do I do this? I didn't have this prior to upgrading to sitemap 3.0 so this is new to me. I'm looking at my webmaster tools home page, with the two sitemaps, website.com and www.website.com which do I choose to keep and how do I set this in webmaster tools?

Regarding the re-direct, I'm guessing this gets added to .htaccess or something?

[How to] Setup www.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com (www vs. non-www) - With .htaccess 301 redirects - vBulletin SEO Forums


webmaster tools
site configuration -> settings

Thanks for the lightning fast reply Brian! OK, I have decided to use the non-www version (just for brevity) I have an .htaccess file in my site root, and one in my forum directory. Which do I add to? Here is the .htaccess file from my forum directory:

# Comment the following line (add '#' at the beginning)
# to disable mod_rewrite functions.
# Please note: you still need to disable the hack in
# the vBSEO control panel to stop url rewrites.
RewriteEngine On

# Some servers require the Rewritebase directive to be
# enabled (remove '#' at the beginning to activate)
# Please note: when enabled, you must include the path
# to your root vBulletin folder (i.e. RewriteBase /forums/)
#RewriteBase /

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

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*.(xml|txt)(.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !vbseourl=
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|chat|cron|external)
RewriteRule ^(.*.php(/.*)?)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1 [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !.(jpg|gif)$
RewriteRule ^(archive/.*)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1 [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1 [L,QSA]

and this one is from my site root:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://mywebsite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://mywebsite.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.mywebsite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.mywebsite.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp)$ - [F,NC]
# Addhandler application/x-httpd-php .html .htm .php
Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^images/e/(.*)$ http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/pict/$1 [R,L]
RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ forum/vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

add this into root.

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

as the 2nd and 3rd line (directly after rewrite engine on)

and replace

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

with

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

in your forum

Originally Posted by Brian Cummiskey

add this into root.

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

as the 2nd and 3rd line (directly after rewrite engine on)

OK so root looks like this:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^mywebsite\.com$
RewriteRule (.*) http://mywebsite.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://mywebsite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://mywebsite.com$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.mywebsite.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.mywebsite.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|bmp)$ - [F,NC]
# Addhandler application/x-httpd-php .html .htm .php
Options -Indexes
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^images/e/(.*)$ http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/pict/$1 [R,L]
RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ forum/vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]


And forum looks like this:

# Comment the following line (add '#' at the beginning)
# to disable mod_rewrite functions.
# Please note: you still need to disable the hack in
# the vBSEO control panel to stop url rewrites.
RewriteEngine On

# Some servers require the Rewritebase directive to be
# enabled (remove '#' at the beginning to activate)
# Please note: when enabled, you must include the path
# to your root vBulletin folder (i.e. RewriteBase /forums/)
#RewriteBase /

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

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*.(xml|txt)(.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !vbseourl=
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|chat|cron|external)
RewriteRule ^(.*.php(/.*)?)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1 [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !.(jpg|gif)$
RewriteRule ^(archive/.*)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1 [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1 [L,QSA]

Yes, that looks fine for the www->non-www redirect, but your actual vbseo htaccess file may be out of date (if you are using vbseo 3.5 series)

consult the htaccess folder of your distribution.

OK, I am using 3.5.2. Here is the .htaccess file from the htaccess folder for this distribution:

# Comment the following line (add '#' at the beginning)
# to disable mod_rewrite functions.
# Please note: you still need to disable the hack in
# the vBSEO control panel to stop url rewrites.
RewriteEngine On

# Some servers require the Rewritebase directive to be
# enabled (remove '#' at the beginning to activate)
# Please note: when enabled, you must include the path
# to your root vB folder (i.e. RewriteBase /forums/)
#RewriteBase /

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

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|cron|vbseo_sitemap)
RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?))$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

I'm guessing that if I'm going with the non-www this should be chnaged to:

# Comment the following line (add '#' at the beginning)
# to disable mod_rewrite functions.
# Please note: you still need to disable the hack in
# the vBSEO control panel to stop url rewrites.
RewriteEngine On

# Some servers require the Rewritebase directive to be
# enabled (remove '#' at the beginning to activate)
# Please note: when enabled, you must include the path
# to your root vB folder (i.e. RewriteBase /forums/)
#RewriteBase /

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

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|cron|vbseo_sitemap)
RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?))$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !/(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

And then this .htaccess would replace the one I have currently in my forum directory?

correct

OK my htaccess files have been replaced. Now is the next step:

webmaster tools
site configuration -> settings

So I have the two sitemaps, mywebsite.com and www.mywebsite.com since I'm choosing mywebsite.com I click on that maps link and go to site configuration -> setting. I'm guessing the setting I need to be sure is active is the preferred domain, then select "display urls as mywebsite.com" correct?

Then do I simply delete the www.mywebsite.com sitemap?

yup, set preferred to non, and delete the www version.

sweeeet..so that is it then? will I know if there are any errors or should I check something after my sitemap is submitted?

OK One problem that I see immediately..I cant delete posts. I receive the following error:

Invalid Action Specified

actually I can't perform any of the moderation functions now. I receive the same message.