Difference between with www. and without

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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.
#search engine optimization #difference #www
  • 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.
    • [2] replies
    • 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.
    • Thanks David. The homepage for my site is not using wordpress.
      • [1] reply
  • There's no difference between:


    www.example.com

    and

    example.com

    Just choose either one, and redirect the other to it.
    • [1] reply
    • If there is no difference then what is being re-directed?
  • 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.
  • Or you can use DNS to redirect your naked domain to www. or http://www.
    • [1] reply
    • DNS has no facility to do redirects. That's not what it's designed for.
      • [1] reply
  • It really comes down to personal choice -- choose one.
    The SEO part is about removing dupe content, not which one you choose.
  • 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!)

  • You say don't do any redirects. Will the redirect hurt my seo efforts? I have set preferred domain in gwt.
    • [2] replies
    • 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.
    • 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

  • There is a link in my cpanel labeled redirects. Will creating my redirect with that tool be sufficient?
  • 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
    • [1] reply
    • stop talking out of your ass
      • [1] reply
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    Difference between with www. and without

    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.