htaccess (301 redirect) (duplicate content)

[yeto]

If I type in mysite.com my website home page loads under mysite.com - if I use www.mysite.com my home page loads under www.mysite.com - if I use www.mysite.com/ my home page loads as www.mysite.com/

Do I have duplicate content that will be penalized by search engines?

If I do have duplicate content is the following the proper code for a 301 redirect and should the main address be the one with www and the forward slash? The only thing in my .htaccess file now is Options -Indexes (yes just those two words - does that sound right?)Do I just type in the following under or above Options -Indexes?

Redirect 301 mysite.com www.mysite.com/
Redirect 301 www.mysite.com www.mysite.com/

Thanks for any help,
Yeto

[coppocks]

If I understand you correctly, the answer to your question is no; you do not have duplicate content.

Webservers are generally setup to recognize www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com as the same thing and direct all visitors to the correct location or home directory/page. A backslash at the end of either simply refers to the home directory and whatever is set as your home page (index.htm or index.html or default.htm etc) will display.

For example, yahoo.com and www.yahoo.com and yahoo.com/ and www.yahoo.com/ all go to the same page and location without duplicate content.

Now, let me be clear; some poorly configured webservers will NOT direct users correctly without the "www" at the front. And believe it or not, some high profile sites are like that. Your webserver appears to be configured properly so that all who attempt to go to your site accomplish that goal.

There is no reason for you to be concerned with 301 redirects for the reasons specified. Search engines do not penalize for this server setup either.