Cannonical Issues - Setting preferred URL

Google has indexed both www and non-www versions of my site. Two weeks ago I chose the www version as my preferred url. In search results, I rank better with the non-www in my keywords and I am wondering if this is just a temporary dance and that both urls will rank the same on the keywords. I am tempted to go back to the non-www version because it is bringing more traffic. However, I have invested more time on links using the www version. I really need some advice on this before i commit an unenforced error. please help.my website is www.laptops-for-cheap.co.ukThanksTovee

 

You need to setup a redirect in your .htaccess file, redirecting all non www pages to the www version. This will solve your problem.

 

use 301 redirect using .htaccess or you can set up a google webmasters account and can select your preference.

 

I do have 301 redirect in my .htaccess file and I have a GWT account. As said in the original post, I have set my www version as the preference, however, my problem was that since I did this, my SERP with my keywords -especially Google has taken a dip. On some occasions, it appears the non-www version goes through the google filters and I get better ranking. Did I do something wrong or it is just a google dance?

 

It might take a little while to settle down, but if you are redirecting all of your non www pages to www you should be in good shape.

 

Thanks a lot revium. i was a bit worried something went wrong, your answer is quite reassuring.

 

Just keep in mind that when you do a 301 redirect, a small amount of link juice is lost, it is not much but a little. This could have a small affect on your rankings if many of your back links were going to the non www version of your pages, but as you build more links internally and externally to the www version your rankings should stabilize once again.

 

I am waiting patiently, hopeful that the ranking will bounce back soon. Thanks all for your contribution.

 

Use 301 redirection. When google crawl your www version automatically it will be updated. so no need to worry.

 

Just another question! Do I need to submit a sitemap for both urls or should I only submit for the preferred URL?

 

I think you forget to redirect your one version to your preferred version of your website. Your non-www version is getting more traffic, so redirect it to www version, this technique will merge your both versions, traffic and backlinks as well.

 

You can resolve this issue using 301 Redirect, change in your .htaccess file.

 

Hi,

Take a help with 301 redirect . It would help to move your domain froom non www to www .

 

Yes, 301 redirection is best option. Moreover you can set canonical code on your home page like this <link rel="canonical" href="prefer domain name"/>

 

Yes @Ajay is right. you should set canonical tag on your page. canonical tag let the search engine which version of domain(non www or www) should be indexed.

 

Thanks guys, it is all done.

 

I virtually dropped to nowhere in Google serps and I could not figure out why. This happened after I had a 301 redirection to sort out cannonical issues because I had both non-www and www versions of my site indexed in google. After spending days agonising why google is punishing me and trawling the web for clues. I used multiple redirect checkers and two of them returned two 200 errors - my index page was indexed twice i.e as www.laptops-for-cheap.co.uk/ and www.laptops-for-cheap.co.uk/index.php. I then did two ridirections- for the non-ww to www and for index.php to the default index page as shown below.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.laptops-for-cheap\.co\.uk
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.laptops-for-cheap.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*/index\.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)index.php$ http://www.laptops-for-cheap.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

This is what google did - wiped out all my links from WMT - I am not sure whether this has any connection with error/'punishment'
I did not appear in the top 1000 and I did not want to bother checking if I appeared after 1000.
Consequently I could not even rank with my title keyword and of course all organic traffic evaporated.

Since I corrected this yesterday, I can see myself from a distant though in the top 200 on some keywords. I am anxiously waiting for any good news.
I hope this will help someone with same problem like mine.