www or non www better for seo?

[webber1]

Hi guys, am I right in thinking that a www version of a site is a sub domain?

Would example.com rank better than the www version?

I have seen some top IMers sites who go for the non www version.

Thanks
B

[Matthew NY]

It shouldnt matter. Either way, www. or not, the link will still go to your page.

[Maraun]

This is just a matter of taste. You have to make sure to 301 redirect one to the other though. If you don't do that Google treats the www and the non-www as two different sites.

[webber1]

Any more views on this?

[killer999]

Originally Posted by Maraun

This is just a matter of taste. You have to make sure to 301 redirect one to the other though. If you don't do that Google treats the www and the non-www as two different sites.

Maraun says everthing

[timbarker]

Using www and non-www doesn't affect your rankings. But before you started SEO on your site, you have to decide if you're going to use www or non-www and stick on what you choose. Also do canonical linking so if you're not using www and your visitor use www, there will still be sent to your website.

[cfl]

with www is better for seo

[timbarker]

Originally Posted by cfl

with www is better for seo

I strongly disagree with that meet. SEO has nothing to do with www or non-www.

[UMS]

Originally Posted by webber1

Hi guys, am I right in thinking that a www version of a site is a sub domain?

Not correct. The 'www' part is a hostname (in 99.9% of cases). I won't bore you with the technical details, but if it was a subdomain, you'd be able to prefix it with a hostname, eg:

somename.www.example.com

Would example.com rank better than the www version?

I have seen some top IMers sites who go for the non www version.

There's no difference for ranking the www or non-www, so long as:

1. You be consistent with the version you build your backlinks to.

2. You set up a 301 redirect from the www to the non-www version or vice-versa.

[oldvintageguy]

I agree that it is a matter of choice -- for me, I like the 'www' just because it's what I'm used to seeing.

[Everythingbranded]

For SEO ranking purposes there is no difference between www and non-www. The www is just a subdomain of the main domain and Google considers subdomains and subdirectories equal (i.e. part of the same website, not special in any way).

You do need to pick one versus the other, though, as using both will cause you SEO problems. Since www.domain.com is a different URL then domain.com you can run into duplicate content penalties since you can pull the same information up using two URLs. To solve this:

1) Set up your webserver to always forward either to the www domain or without it. This should be a 301 redirect. In Apache it would look like this:

Forward to the www

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www\.|$) [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

Forward to the non-www

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.|$) [NC]
RewriteRule ^ http://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

2) Make sure all of your internal links use the chosen form (even though the 301 redirect will catch this for you internal links do pass PR and help your rankings and 301 redirects dilute their value).

3) In Google Webmaster Tools tell Google to always use the www or not. It's under site configurations / settings.

The preferred domain is the one that you would like used to index your site's pages. If you specify your preferred domain as IANA — Example domains and we find a link to your site that is formatted as IANA — Example domains , we'll treat that link as if it was IANA — Example domains . In addition, we'll take your preference into account when displaying URLs in our search results. It may take some time for changes to be reflected in our index.

4) You may want to consider use rel=canonical tags on your pages to make sure the search engines always know which chosen form is the right one but this is redundant since the 301 redirect should prevent them from seeing the other form.

[oldvintageguy]

Originally Posted by Everythingbranded

...In Google Webmaster Tools tell Google to always use the www or not.

Do you recommend doing that even if you set up the 301 redirect in .htaccess? In other words, is it necessary to tell google if you have a 301 in place? Or does google figure it out on its own? Thanks.

[Stuart william]

Originally Posted by Maraun

This is just a matter of taste. You have to make sure to 301 redirect one to the other though. If you don't do that Google treats the www and the non-www as two different sites.

Both version are preferred by google. Depends on you but you need to redirect another version to preferred one

[John Moore]

It's doesn't really matter, so long as you always build links to one or the other, google will treat your site the same.

[pbbiet]

It hardly matter i have all the sites without www and they rank well and a few rank lower then www its all on your SEO work.

[ebrg]

Originally Posted by UMS

There's no difference for ranking the www or non-www, so long as:

1. You be consistent with the version you build your backlinks to.

2. You set up a 301 redirect from the www to the non-www version or vice-versa.

Why is "1" necessary if you have done "2" ?

[mikest4u]

Basically This term know as canonical URLs, You can use 301 Permanent Root Redirect to Fix This Issue!

[BlackMetal]

shouldn't effect rankings, but I have run tests on adwords, and it definitely gives a big effect on click through rates

[LangeTroels]

Originally Posted by BlackMetal

shouldn't effect rankings, but I have run tests on adwords, and it definitely gives a big effect on click through rates

Interesting.. What are you experiencing?

My guess is that people tend to click www. version more - correct?

BR
Troels

[seanpearse]

Originally Posted by BlackMetal

shouldn't effect rankings, but I have run tests on adwords, and it definitely gives a big effect on click through rates

yeah I'm interested as well...which version was most popular on adwords?

[mothert26]

my guess would be the www too.. at least personal preference.

[sadek]

It doesn't matter for SEO.
But I will suggest you to use a www as our common habit is to write url with www such as www.example-site.com

[Lucy Writes]

I don't think it matters for SEO purposes, but I always use www, just because I think it looks more professional on a website and it is what I and I think most internet users are used to seeing.

[robrave]

It doesn't matter.

Just choose one and stick with it. Make sure that you do your backlinking consistently only on one. If you go for www, then do all your backlinking efforts on www.

[LeoTran]

You can choose www or non-www to use but you should redirect 301 between both versions .

[elizabethjean733]

Originally Posted by Lucy Writes

I don't think it matters for SEO purposes, but I always use www, just because I think it looks more professional on a website and it is what I and I think most internet users are used to seeing.

Yes it do matters, its a case of canonical issue. In this case if your site is opening with two multiple url's one with www and one is without. So Google will consider this as two duplicate pages of your site. This will effect you in Rank in SERP's.

Hey Folks
Read Canonical Article on Wiki.
__________________________________________________ _____________
Yii PHP | Yii Framework

[kenneth1982]

I think Non www better when you seo web page. If you don't use www, your web page decrease 4 length (www.).

[johnvictor]

I suggest you to go with using worldwideweb . However they both doesn't have a major difference but it's better to go with WorldWideWeb.

[annaharris]

It depends on your choice.

[PromoDirect]

One of my friend is having problem with www. His website is a plain HTML static website hosted on IS Windows server. He wants his website to redirect to IANA — Example domains when just example.com is been entered, doesn't know how to do it, does anyone have an answer?

[nadiamoqaddas]

I suggest you write www as it is best format of a website

[Jospeh31]

Some directories check your URL when you submit and you must use "www".

[webdevpro]

There should be no difference but you need to stuck with either one. 'www' will be better in case if you are also planning to add other subdomains, and thats not from ranking point but from consistency point. This way all your urls will look similar in structure. Rest depends on your own taste.

[webtrafficnoob]

doesn't matter - however as stated before

choose one and stick to it and build your links to the same one

-J

[thedigger]

You should prefer either w3 or non-w3. You should not consider both else it will create canonical issue.

[Jospeh31]

there is no "best format"! you just need to pick the "one".

You do this by creating a htaccess file.

here is a simple one:

AddDefaultcharset On
AddType 'text/html; charset=UTF-8' html
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourwebsite.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourwebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*\/index\.html?
RewriteRule ^(.*)index\.html?$ http://www.yourwebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

If you dont do this there are 6 instances of your url, something like:

www.domain.com
domain.com
www.domain.com/index.php
domain.com/index.php

etc

Google is smart enough to figure these this now, but like Google CEO says, matt cutts, its better if you help. I have seen a lot of cases where this version www.domain.com had a PR of 4 and this one domain.com had a PR of 1.

more info here:

SEO advice: url canonicalization

[Jospeh31]

Here is what Matt Says:

"Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:

• IANA — Example domains
• example.com/
• IANA — Example domains
• example.com/home.asp

But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes” a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set."

[Harga]

I prefer www - The reason is because when you get natural backlinks, people have a tendency to include the www, generally.

[SKULL]

It dos not matter , it will still rank the same with or without www
But i always kinda stick to www

[mileagedriver]

Both shows no difference. You can use 301 redirection to fix this issue.

[mo3tez]

there is no SEO impact using www or non www

[sam1216]

you should stick with one

[linkvana]

Since everyone's already given a thorough explanation of 301 redirects, I just wanted to add one more thing to consider.

Look at your existing backlinks. If the majority point to one version, then choose that version as your main site. 301 redirects work well, but they do have a minor PR loss.

[Nathan Isaac]

It does not matter at all.

Just a few things to remember:

- Point your 301 to the url you choose.
- When creating backlinks, point them to the link you chose.

[FrFai]

Sorry for hijacking your thread.

I have site running WP. It was non-www and I wanted to redirect it to www.

So I went to my Dashboard > General Settings and changed Site URL: http://domain.com to http://www.domain.com

Is it the correct SEO way? or I have to do it .htaccess way ?

Thanks in advance.

[BethOconnell]

I've found this thread very interesting indeed because I've just had a client query me in regards to this.

They adamantly want the link text without the www

so is this just personal preference then?

[ralchevd]

non www. the url is shorter.

[Mark Hoffman]

www. is the way to go, its better for SEO

[jeweling]

it doesn't matter,if you choose www then all www,if you choose non www,then all non www

[Natlex]

It does not matter, I have mostly non www because that is the default with wordpress and it changed nothing. I have 2 www. sites and they rank the same.