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Bought a site with wordpress - www vs. non-www seo problem

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by jasonsc, Aug 21, 2007.

  1. #1
    Hello,

    I just bought a large site that is build on wordpress. I am moving the site to my server and I have noticed that the guy that owned it used the non-www option. But all the links to the site are with www option and front page is indexed as www in google, all the other pages are as not www.

    What would you do? Would you change settings in WP to www mode?? I would do it, but I am afraid site would drop in search engine positioning if I change permalink structure (had bad experience before with changing internal structure of webpage, I lost rankings on some other site).

    Does the www vs. non-www even play a big role?

    Thanks for all replys, reps given!
     
    jasonsc, Aug 21, 2007 IP
    m0rtal likes this.
  2. WPOSolutions

    WPOSolutions Active Member

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    #2
    I dont believe that it makes a big difference as regards rankings, although i did read something a while back that mentioned that you could configure the .htaccess file in someway to insure that www was always indexed, which apparently meant that any PR related to the non www would pass to the www.

    Ive never tried that so im not sure. hopefully someone else here might know. :)
     
    WPOSolutions, Aug 21, 2007 IP
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  3. muki007

    muki007 Peon

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    #3
    I did once and it dropped from the SEs for a while, later it came back, but I had a 2 month or so break .
     
    muki007, Aug 21, 2007 IP
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  4. Gatorade

    Gatorade Peon

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    #4
    Just leave the site the way it is if you have any doubts. www. and no www are the same, the only thing that it would effect is the page rank.
     
    Gatorade, Aug 21, 2007 IP
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  5. m0rtal

    m0rtal Well-Known Member

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    #5
    Wrong, they are treated as separate by Google and I believe by the other SEs as well.

    Personally I would change it as all link juice will flow to one but don't blame me if you take that route and something happens :p
     
    m0rtal, Aug 21, 2007 IP
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  6. brandondrury

    brandondrury Peon

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    #6
    I would go for the long term solution and make sure all your PR was targeted towards one or the other unless making a major change is to put you in the poor house.

    Brandon
     
    brandondrury, Aug 21, 2007 IP
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  7. trichnosis

    trichnosis Prominent Member

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    #7
    there is wordpress plugin called "Permanent Link Redirect" . I dont remember the url but i'm sure that if you google that term , you can find it.

    it can help you.
     
    trichnosis, Aug 21, 2007 IP
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  8. m0rtal

    m0rtal Well-Known Member

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    #8
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]
    Code (markup):
    Use that in htaccess if you wish. It will redirect all non www to www.
     
    m0rtal, Aug 21, 2007 IP
  9. jasonsc

    jasonsc Well-Known Member

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    #9
    Exactly what I was thinking. Thanks all for your thoughts, reps were given!
     
    jasonsc, Aug 22, 2007 IP
  10. usasportstraining

    usasportstraining Notable Member

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    #10
    It's called Canonicalization. Here's an explanation from Matt Cutts.

    You will notice different PR values between the two. This also effects http vs https, although Matt didn't mention this specifically.
     
    usasportstraining, Aug 22, 2007 IP
  11. bobmeetsworld

    bobmeetsworld Well-Known Member

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    #11
    bobmeetsworld, Aug 22, 2007 IP