Indexed Pages In Google

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Hey guys,

I've been working on a new domain of mine which is about 4 weeks old and started off with it being a canonical domain (using the www.) after looking around at other sites etc, I decided I preferred the look of a non canonical domain better, so I changed it over and also made sure I used a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file so it's permanently changed.

However Google has indexed some pages with www. and some without, also some duplicates too, which I completely expected to happen. Although I'd obviously like to push them along and wipe out the www. listings and replace them with the non www. listings.

Has anyone done this before? If so how can I do it? I have a feeling I'm going to have to wait for it to naturally happen which could take months, but I just wanted to see if anyone found a quicker way.

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!
Andrew
#search engine optimization #google #indexed #pages
  • Some suggestions: Have you checked your redirects are completely correct? Maybe clicked on some of the www listings and made sure you're being redirected to the right page on non-www? And taken a look at the redirect in something like web-sniffer to make sure it's giving the correct header?

    Also - have you set your preferred domain in Google Webmaster Tools?
  • I like to play things safe and just stick with whatever setup I was using before instead of changing.....definitely check your redirects to be 100% sure they are functional though...even the smallest of errors can cause big issues
    • [1] reply
    • I agree with that. It doesn't really matter too much for any site which one you choose. So once you've got one, stay with it.

      But it seems it's probably too late in this case - and going back will probably make things worse.
  • Hey guys,

    Thanks for your responses. I'm happy I made the change, I understand that I shouldn't have messed with it, but it's done now so just want to see if I can get these www. listings swapped out for the non www. ones.

    @carleisenstein - Definitely correct, I've triple checked that all 301's work and ALL links go to the non canonical domain now, even clicked on them in the GOOGLE results and they work fine. I haven't changed the preferred domain in GWT, but from what I understand this only removes the www. in the listings visually, not technically, so when you roll over the listing, even though it doesn't have a www. the status bar will show the URL with the www. - revealing the real URL... if that makes sense.
  • Then I would say wait and keep on building links to your non-www site to persuade Google that that's how it's going to stay!
    • [1] reply
    • I agree...keep building links and hope for the best I suppose....
  • Just a quick update, I've checked the indexed pages and half the www. links have now been removed and replaced with the non www. ones which is cool, so natural is the way to go. Just takes ages.
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    Indexed Pages In Google

    Hey guys, I've been working on a new domain of mine which is about 4 weeks old and started off with it being a canonical domain (using the www.) after looking around at other sites etc, I decided I preferred the look of a non canonical domain better, so I changed it over and also made sure I used a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file so it's permanently changed.