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Url With Or Without 'WWW' Question

by Hamida Harland
12 replies
This is a quote I found today on webhostingtalk.com


Choose www or no www
Some search engines see the above two URLs as two different URLs. Each URL can have a different pagerank, and by using both, you're diluting the pr for each URL.
So here's my question - if Google has indexed my site without the www, is it bad if I'm getting backlinks for www.sitename.com? Does that mean the backlinks I'm getting aren't helping the ranking and pr at all?

Is there anything I should do ie add www to the url (from within wordpress) and hope that Google indexes it like that, or should I just leave it alone?

Is it necessary to use a redirect plugin (I use wordpress) and should I redirect from www to without, or vice versa (my personal preference is for using www).

Or am I just being totally paranoid - maybe it doesn't matter at all?
#question #url #www
  • Profile picture of the author zeurois
    To add that, you have a setting in the general tab.

    I'm not sure though how much importance the www has ... I know it's totally different when you speak of cookies, but I don't know how G sees them. Try to use www from now on though.
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    • Profile picture of the author Hamida Harland
      Originally Posted by zeurois View Post

      To add that, you have a setting in the general tab.

      I'm not sure though how much importance the www has ... I know it's totally different when you speak of cookies, but I don't know how G sees them. Try to use www from now on though.
      Thanks. I'm going to add it in future, although I'm wondering how it affects the backlinks I've already got for my current sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author zeurois
    If you set it to have www, wordpress already redirects to www (if you hit domain.com it will redirect you www.domain.com), so SEs might follow .... or ban you
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    • Profile picture of the author Neil Morgan
      Hello Hamida

      Although this isn't directly related to your SEO question, it's worth mentioning.

      A couple of years ago, I realised that visitors from one of my affiliates were not being tracked properly, and the affiliate was not being credited with sales.

      The reason this was happening was because the affiliate was sending people to my site using their link, but without the 'www'. So the visitor was cookied with the non-www domain.

      My order processing system scripts all used 'www' and they could not see the non-www cookie, hence the affiliate was not credited with the sale.

      I hope this makes sense.

      Cheers,

      Neil
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  • Profile picture of the author derekwong28
    Hamida, it is completely possible to have completely different sites on www. and non www. and therefore search engines will treat it accordingly. Although in my experience, if the sites are the same, Google will try to "merge links". But since there is no guarantee that this is happen, it would be best that you do make a redirect.

    One way to check which version that Google prefers is to use the info: command.

    info:yoursite.com returns www.yoursite.com, then Google prefers the www version
    info:www.yoursite.com returns yoursite.com, then Google prefers the non-www version

    If both info:yoursite.com and info:www.yoursite.com returns the correct version, then you will have to make the pick yourself.

    -Derek
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  • Profile picture of the author waken
    Hi Hamida,
    I leant that it's ok to either go with or without www but you need to make sure that stick to just one. Once you've choose yours, make the other one redirect to the one that you've chosen in the htaccess.

    Here's the code... How to Redirect a Web Page Using a 301 Redirect
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      That's a good test Derek provided. This www or not confuses me, too. All I know is that if I type a url into the address bar without the www, sometimes it adds it when the page opens. My guess is that this is what Derek is talking about... Google preference. I just tried my own domains with and without WWW and in both cases, the sites came up without Google or my browser changing the URL.

      Sylvia
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  • Profile picture of the author Cash Blasters Online
    I don't worry about such things, and it never hurts my sites,
    But if your worried post links both ways..so 1 is good, 2 is a Charm? I guess
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  • Profile picture of the author mmurtha
    Hey Hamida,

    No, you are not being paranoid. It does matter!

    The thing about the www dot or without it is ...

    Yes some SEs see it as 2 different domains in a way. For instance, if you have been using just the domain without the www dot then start using the www dot, Google will split your domain PR accordingly. It will also accredit the backlinks accordingly.

    If it was my blog or site, and I already had backlinks to my domain only (without www), I would stick with that format. The same is true the other way.

    I made this mistake with one of my major hubs, and it was a costly mistake. Now the PR and backlinks are still split after 3+ yrs. :-\

    Hope you do not have to learn the same way as I did.

    Hope this helps ...


    Mary
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  • Profile picture of the author Bishop81
    I will pick one way of doing it on a site, and each one may be different. The most important thing, though, is to be consistent with your backlinks.
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