Serious Question About My Rankings. Hope I didn't screw something up here...

[thobbs31]

I've been building anchor text backlinks like a crazy person all pointing to www.mysite.com. Today, google updated so my www.mysite.com is nowhere to be found. That's OK, I expected that.

However, mysite.com is on page 2?!? I haven't built any backlinks to mysite.com and haven't really done any SEO for it. In webmaster mysite.com only shows 1 incoming link.

For my www.mysite.com settings, I do have it set to show URL's as mysite.com. I hope that's what is happening here - all the links and everything are fine, google is just showing the url as mysite.com. Or have I totally screwed stuff up? If I have screwed up, how do I fix it?

Thanks for any help.

Tom

[edmltw]

Chill, it's normal.

Whether your site's really www. in nature or without the www. , it depends on your hosting company's domain settings.

Anyway, since Google registered your domain as http:// , might as well start backlinking that way from now on, as that is how Google recognize your site within the SERPS.

Happy backlinking

Ed

[thobbs31]

Originally Posted by edmltw

Chill, it's normal.

Whether your site's really www. in nature or without the www. , it depends on your hosting company's domain settings.

Anyway, since Google registered your domain as http:// , might as well start backlinking that way from now on, as that is how Google recognize your site within the SERPS.

Happy backlinking

Ed

Thanks for the reply. At my hosting company, mysite.com is setup to forward to www. mysite.com. On google, mysite.com and www.mysite.com are both indexed. www.mysite.com is setup to display mysite.com as url.

All of my backlinks have been built with anchor text pointing to www.mysite.com. Up until earlier today, www.mysite.com was on page four. Now, www.mysite.com is nowhere to be found and mysite.com is on page 2.

Should I start building all of my backlinks pointing to mysite.com? Have I wasted all of my backlinks pointing to www.mysite.com? OR, are all of my backlinks pointing to www.mysite.com actually working and I've reached page 2 for www.mysite.com but google is only showing mysite.com as the url?

Sorry, hope all of that makes sense to somebody.

Tom

[dburk]

Hi Tom,

You have what is known as a canonicalization issue. You should pick one version of your URL, with or without the www and stick to the one format from now on. Make sure that you build all new links to the same version and that you use the same version in all your internal linking.

You can set your preferred canonical in Google's Webmaster Tools. You may need to add a couple lines of code to .htaccess file to redirect all incorrect versions to preferred version.

This link will give you much more detail:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Specify your canonical

[Mamun_R]

I was watching a video by Matt Cutts, he actually addressed the same issue. The best thing you can do is have it pointed in your htaccess file and also on google webmaster tools.

[thobbs31]

dburk,

Thanks for the reply. What you have stated, is what I think I have done...

In Webmaster tools:

mysite.com = show URL as mysite.com

www.mysite.com = show URL as mysite.com

It has been this way for months when I first learned that I should do this.

Backlinks:

In all of the backlinks I have created for months, the anchor text points to http://www.mysite.com. I didn't think it mattered. Does it? Should I start pointing all of my anchor text to http://mysite.com instead?

Basically, did what I thought I was supposed to do in google and every backlink I have built points to http://www.mysite.com. I haven't mixed the url's in my backlinks. They are all the same.

What I'm hoping is that all of my backlinks pointing to http://www.mysite.com have actually been working and have taken my site to page 2. BUT, google is only showing http://mysite.com as the URL because that is how I have it setup. Is that possible?

Thanks again for your help.

Tom

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Tom,

You have what is known as a canonicalization issue. You should pick one version of your URL, with or without the www and stick to the one format from now on. Make sure that you build all new links to the same version and that you use the same version in all your internal linking.

You can set your preferred canonical in Google's Webmaster Tools. You may need to add a couple lines of code to .htaccess file to redirect all incorrect versions to preferred version.

This link will give you much more detail:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Specify your canonical

[thobbs31]

OK, after a good night of sleep, I went back and read the info in the link provided by dburk. My interpretation of the first paragraph is that all of my links are still good, but when google returns search results, it is displaying my preference of mysite.com as the URL. That's what I told google to do, so that's what they're doing.

So now the question is, should I continue building my links with anchor text pointing to http://www.mysite.com, or should I start building them to point to http://mysite.com? Does is matter?

Thanks,

Tom

[dburk]

Hi Tiom,

Absolutely it matters. Google has went to great lengths to help webmasters resolve this issue because it can have a very detrimental effect on your search engine rankings.

What you have done, creating backlinks to one URL while forcing Google to rank a different canonical will certainly hurt your SEO efforts. You need to pick one way and one way only, and make sure that every link that you create in your internal navigation links, backlinks and Webmaster Tools settings always point to the same canonical. In addition you should use mod rewrite to 301 redirect all incorrect canonicals to your chosen canonical.

The guiding principal is to be consistent in your preferred canonical. I does not matter which version you use as long as you always use the same version and never deviate.

Watch this video to get a better idea of why this is a big issue and what you need to do to make sure that you are doing everything possible to minimize the damage you are doing to your rankings:

YouTube - Canonical Link Element

[Davioli]

What you've done in webmaster tools ensures you won't lose any link juice.

It would however be wise to build backlinks to http:// instead of WWW from now on.

Oh.. and relax!

[thobbs31]

All of my backlinks are actually built as the full url - http://www.mysite.com.

I went to webmaster tools today and changed my preference from http://mysite.com to http://www.mysite.com.

I suppose changing my google setting will screw up my rankings for awhile, but at least now everything will be the same going forward.

Thanks for all the help and advice.

Tom

[alenyuli]

just keep building link and you will see the result..