Will I get penalised if I redirect from home page

[wkenny]

Google has at last given most pages on my site a page rank. However, if I come into the site without typing www before the domain name, the page rank does not show.
If I do a permanent redirect from mysite.com to www.mysite.com will I be in breach of Google's (and most of the other majors) rules re redirecting?
Any help on this appreciated.

[JohnW]

You should do a pemanent redirect as soon as possible. This is not only a w3c compliance issue but a way to prevent major SE problems. Make sure the response header returns a 301 status.

[demonwebb]

I have noticed that our hosting company shows both www and non www as separate domains. This is quite worrying if it isnt W3C compliant and can harm ratings.
I notice that sites like Ebay, Amazon, and the BBC all redirect to the www url, while SEW redirects to the non www. I'm guessing either way is ok, but its bad to have both. Just wondering how important is it. Is it a minor thing or a major no-no?

[JohnW]

SEW does redirect to the non-www page. That's OK, the real issue is to pick one or the other and not allow both. It's a major thing to make sure that the same page of content does not show up under more than one name (URL).

[wkenny]

Thanks John. Have doen permanent redirect as suggested.