No www.

by 16 replies
18
If a website address does not have a www, will that effect any seo efferts?

Example:

http://domain.com

What do i need to do to correct this.? It just doesnt seem right.
#search engine optimization #www
  • It does not affect how your site ranks. You need to build all your backlinks to one form of the web address though.

    These are all different as far as search engines are concerned:

    http://www.domain.com
    http://www.domain.com/index.html
    http://domain.com
    http://domain.com/index.html

    It is known as url canonicalization. You can edit your .htaccess file to correct it.

    Here is a post by Matt Cutts about the topic.

    SEO advice: url canonicalization
    • [1] reply
  • This code works for Apache servers.

    Code:
    RewriteEngine on 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} 
^mysite.com [NC] 
RewriteRule (.*) http://
www.mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301]
    Hope this helps you out a bit, or at least puts you in the right direction.
    • [2] replies
    • I absolutely agree with tx138. You should make a 301 redirect from non-www to www or vice versa. It will be a big help on your SEO efforts especially when building backlinks. If you want to check it, try typing "google.com" on your web browser then see what happens.
      • [1] reply
    • How, exactly, do you do this? Where do you put this code? Anyone have detailed instructions? Thanks.
      • [1] reply
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • If you are using Wordpress, go to your Dashboard > Settings > General

    From there, change the Wordpress Address and Site Address to include the www

    WordPress www and non-www
    • [1] reply
    • So is www. better than the non www.? Then why does WP seem to default to the non www., at least on my installs anyway?
  • www is neither better or worse than non-www. They both have the same affect.

    Just choose one and be consistent with its use.
  • Just choose one and be consistent. Not have a www doesn't matter at all.
  • In past it would lead to less link juice since you spread it out between two duplicate pages (with-www and non-www)

    maybe search engines are smart enough to handle that today... But really, whhy not just fix it? It is easy to fix.
  • [DELETED]
    • [1] reply
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