: IP canonical URL issue So I did a search engine optimization test today and one thing it came back with was: Your site's IP XX.XXX.XXX.XX does not redirect to your site's domain name.

@Ann8826881

This warning is innocuous since IP addresses can serve multiple hosts and are not expected to redirect to one particular domain.

Prior to being concerned with this, you should first check if accessing the IP address even returns the same content as your domain. Even if it does however, search engines like Google will not penalize your site for duplicate content unless it appears to be spammy (e.g., intentionally scraping site content from another site), as indicated here:

Cutts on similar website content, multiple domains: Duplicate or safe?

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@Berumen354

You probably want something like this depending on what your canonical URL is:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
# Redirect IP/non-canonical domains
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^11.22.33.44 <-- Server IP here.
RewriteRule (.*) www.example.com/ [R=301,L]


You may already have something similar in your .htaccess if you redirect www -> non-www or vice versa.

edit - please remove the <-- Server IP here once you insert your own server IP.

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