301 redirect

[cleanxhost]

Hi, A friend want me to do the SEO for her website, though its not hosted on my server...
I asked her to get in touch with her hosting company and tell them to do a 301 redirect so that http://domain goes to http://www.domain and this was their answer to her:

301 redirect, why bother ? if you are that concerned, use google webmaster tools and set a preference there.
I have never ever seen a site penalised in the way you describe, good practice is to inform google in webmaster tools for a preference to www.

Is this correct?

Thanks!

[switcher]

I won't say what you should do, but one of the options in the Google Webmaster Tools, is that you have a choice

***********************************************

1) Don't set a preferred domain

2) Display URLs as www.YourSiteName.com

3) Display URLs as YourSiteName.com

***********************************************

Number one (above) is selecteed by default, & that's the way I have left my site. Makes the most sense to me to leave it so as to not set a preferred domain.

[brandonr]

I've got mine set to www and I use htaccess to redirect all non www links to www via 301 redirect.

Any time i back link etc... i always use www. in the back links as well. You don't need the host to make this change (as long as you have access to the .htaccess file in the sites root directory).