How To Change Which URL is Indexed in Google (www or non www)

by Kirahster

Posted: 13 years ago 7 replies

Hi All,

When I am building backlinks to a website I pay very close attention to which version of the url I am building backlinks to. I always tend to focus on the non-www format.

Recently, I backlinked a site up to a high position on the first page and then I was contacted by a person that wanted to buy the site. Well what they really wanted to do was to buy the domain and then build it out into a bigger site. So I sold them the domain.

Well when they rebuilt the site and put it into their webmaster tools, it was reindexed by Google as the www version. Due to the fact that the majority of the links are pointing at the non-www version the site has lost some of its ranking.

So far we have reupdated the webmaster tools, continued to build links to the site and also pinged the site using the non-www format to try and get it re-indexed using the correct version.

Does anyone have any other tips or tricks as to how to get this to happen quicker. It has been a few weeks already.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

#change #google #indexed #url #www

iAmNameLess 13 years ago

It is going to stay in the index for quite some time. It will reindex you on your non www version, just give it some time, but you won't be removing the www. version at all.

A better way to do this would be to set up a 301 redirect from the www to non www.
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Kirahster 13 years ago

Have you ever had this experience before?

How long did it take for the version that you wanted to be reindexed?
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Mike Grant 13 years ago

Canonicalize the URLs and set which version they want, www or without, in Webmaster Tools. You'll be back to normal in less than 2 weeks.
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Kirahster 13 years ago

So I am presuming that when the correct version is re-indexed that the ranking of the site will also go back up.

Does anyone have any experience with this?
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- Mike Grant 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Kirahster
  
  So I am presuming that when the correct version is re-indexed that the ranking of the site will also go back up.
  
  Does anyone have any experience with this?
  
  You're correct.
  
  Thanks
  
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yukon Banned 13 years ago

I always run a unique canonical tag on every single page (page/post/category/tag).

I also make my 404 page do a 301 redirect back to the Index page, this way If any backlinks ever get broken I still get some credit for those backlinks.

As long as the TLD isn't broken (mispelled/typo) the 301 will catch everything else, & redirect back to my Index page.
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sane1 13 years ago

I've used the redirect as Yukon states which works.
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How To Change Which URL is Indexed in Google (www or non www)

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