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

the above code works for http://www.example.net but only http://example.net is giving "page not found"

I simply want www appended automatically. Please help.

Try this:

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

didn't work !

It seems the problem still persists, my browser cache has been fooling me.


It turned out to be more of a redirection problem than rewrite rules so here is the solution.

In linode dns
example.com

In Virtual host
servername http://www.example.com
serveralias example.com

In the website directory .htaccess file is supposed to contain;

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

Is the goal to make http://www.example.net/ == http://example.net/ ?

If so then you don't need a redirect rule just make sure your DNS is setup right.

The goal, most likely, is to have exactly one of 'www.example.com' or 'example.com' be the canonical hostname for the site by redirecting the "wrong" one to the "correct" one. This is generally considered a good thing to do, both for aesthetics and for making things easier on web crawlers. (It's real SEO, in other words.)

_________________

/* TODO: need to add signature to posts */

@jebblue,

yes the idea is to have a website which is accessible by http://www.example.net to be reached via example.net. @hoopycat is right. we want to achieve it for better seo.

http://www.example.net (currently the link is working fine)
&
example.net (currently the link gives page cannot be displayed)

to reach

http://www.example.net


Can't make it more clearer than this

Check if you can you ping both www and just the domain name and get back a response. Check if nslookup or dig see both names.