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Difference between with www. and without

by iconoclast
20 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I'm having some S.E.O. work done on one of my websites. The man suggested I do a redirect on the www.mysite.com to http://mysite.com so that one extension gets all the credit.

Can someone explain to me the difference, if there is any, between http://www.mysite.com and http://mysite.com and if it is a good idea, for S.E.O. purposes, to redirect one into the other? Thank you.
#difference #www
  • Profile picture of the author David V
    You can do a few simple things for this.
    Awhile back you may have needed to do a 301 redirect, but the latest versions of WP set the canonical urls.

    Decide which one you want, www.examplesite.com or just examplesite.com.

    In WP admin, under Settings → General, make sure the version you want to show up is properly reflected.

    Use the linking in your site consistently. Don't mix www. with non www.
    Set your preference in Google Webmaster Tools.
    A good article overview by Yoast.
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    • Profile picture of the author webss
      The SEO section of the forum seems to have lots of conversations about this from time to time. You can also check over there to read others opinions on it.
      Generally speaking, it is common practice to selected your preferred domain as David stated above.
      If you use the non www version in your link building campaigns you dont want to use the www version as your preferred domain. Although some say Google can figure it out. Yes, it is best to choose it, set it, re-direct it if necessary.
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    • Profile picture of the author iconoclast
      Originally Posted by David V View Post

      You can do a few simple things for this.
      Awhile back you may have needed to do a 301 redirect, but the latest versions of WP set the canonical urls.

      Decide which one you want, www.examplesite.com or just examplesite.com.

      In WP admin, under Settings → General, make sure the version you want to show up is properly reflected.

      Use the linking in your site consistently. Don't mix www. with non www.
      Set your preference in Google Webmaster Tools.
      A good article overview by Yoast.
      Thanks David. The homepage for my site is not using wordpress.
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      • Profile picture of the author ttkim
        Generally, they are the same, but search engines consider the two sites to be different.

        Code:
        http://www.example.com
http://example.com
        Because those are seen as two different sites by search engines, you want to redirect one to the other and stick with it.

        Here is basically how you would do a redirect without the www. Put this in your htaccess file.

        Code:
        RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]
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  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    There's no difference between:


    www.example.com

    and

    example.com

    Just choose either one, and redirect the other to it.
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    • Profile picture of the author iconoclast
      Originally Posted by UMS View Post

      There's no difference between:


      Example Domain

      and

      example.com

      Just choose either one, and redirect the other to it.
      If there is no difference then what is being re-directed?
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  • Profile picture of the author iconoclast
    There is a location in my cpanel to create a redirect and it asks if I want to redirect www. to a selected location. Hopefully this will be sufficient. Thanks for the input everyone.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hansons
    Or you can use DNS to redirect your naked domain to www. or http://www.
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  • Profile picture of the author kpmedia
    It really comes down to personal choice -- choose one.
    The SEO part is about removing dupe content, not which one you choose.
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  • Profile picture of the author patco
    According to me there is NO difference between them. You just have to choose one of them and work on it (make it the one for your website!)
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  • Profile picture of the author iconoclast
    Originally Posted by jacksarloks View Post

    Don't do any redirects. Just go to Google Webmaster Tools locate the preferred domain settings and specify that the version with www is your preferred domain!

    When Google will find a backlinks like this http://mysite.com it will still give you credit for them as if they where like this http://www.mysite.com

    Without setting this feature in GWT you waste a lot of backlinks that have not the www in them because Google treats both urls as different domains!

    Jack

    You say don't do any redirects. Will the redirect hurt my seo efforts? I have set preferred domain in gwt.
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    • Profile picture of the author Cosmit
      Originally Posted by iconoclast View Post

      You say don't do any redirects. Will the redirect hurt my seo efforts? I have set preferred domain in gwt.
      Just update your .htaccess file and set your preferred version.

      Redirect www to non-www:

      Code:
      RewriteEngine On RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
      Redirect non-www to www:

      Code:
      RewriteEngine On RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
      Even though google can detect and credit links to both www and non-www, the htaccess redirect will help other search engines who don't know your preferred version.
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    • Profile picture of the author ttkim
      Originally Posted by iconoclast View Post

      You say don't do any redirects. Will the redirect hurt my seo efforts? I have set preferred domain in gwt.
      No, you should still do redirects. I have no idea what he's talking about.

      It won't hurt you. Every site out there should do it and most sites do. Google isn't the only search engine. And even if they were, just take a look at this page from Matt Cutts' blog:

      SEO advice: url canonicalization

      Q: Is there anything else I can do?
      A: Yes. Suppose you want your default url to be
      Code:
      http://www.example.com/
      . You can make your webserver so that if someone requests
      Code:
      http://example.com
      , it does a 301 (permanent) redirect to
      Code:
      http://www.example.com/
      . That helps Google know which url you prefer to be canonical. Adding a 301 redirect can be an especially good idea if your site changes often (e.g. dynamic content, a blog, etc.).
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  • Profile picture of the author iconoclast
    There is a link in my cpanel labeled redirects. Will creating my redirect with that tool be sufficient?
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  • Profile picture of the author dome
    WWW and non WWW sites are 2 different pages.

    if your site has both version google see's it as 2 website and give you penalty of duplicate content.

    all you can do is 301 redirect your site to either www version or non www. so all link juice get on sigle version and you will be safe from duplicate penalty
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    • Profile picture of the author Cosmit
      Originally Posted by dome View Post

      WWW and non WWW sites are 2 different pages.

      if your site has both version google see's it as 2 website and give you penalty of duplicate content.

      all you can do is 301 redirect your site to either www version or non www. so all link juice get on sigle version and you will be safe from duplicate penalty
      stop talking out of your ass
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        They are not two separate pages. The myth goes like this:
        Google thinks it's two different pages. BUT...this is
        2013. Google is smart enough to know what to do.

        It's not really a redirect in the true sense of what people
        think a redirect is. www. is technically a subdomain, although
        better people than me argue against the notion.

        The only time it really makes a difference, is if your server/host
        settings are such that you MUST type the www, or, if you do
        type www., it won't take you there either. That's why www. is
        really a subdomain. You either have it or you don't. Rarely
        do you not have it, but it happens.

        One I just saw the other day was larryscountrydiner.com
        You need the www. I can't believe a site like that would
        actually not be set correctly. Like I said, it happens. But
        it shouldn't.

        Redirecting the non www to the www, or the other way around,
        is a nice thing to do, but not needed in 2013.

        After all, who in their right mind makes backlinks in a 50-50
        fashion, some with, some without? Not me. And it won't
        matter in the long run for linkbait anyway.

        I cannot believe that in 2013, google has problems like that.
        If they do, then your site has problems, not google.

        Just make sure that either www or non www each go to the
        index page.

        People should worry about stuff that matters.

        Paul
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