Hi for seo (particularly in google) does it matter if I link to my site with the www. or without? It seems like if you always link with the www. then thats what shows up in Google but does it really matter? Also, and most importantly to me, does Google treat a link with www. or without to be linking to the same page?
with www is better. always stick to one format. you should do a 301 redirect from the non-used format.
OK, thanks but can I ask why this matters? I mean wouldn't some people natural link to your site with the www. and other without it? Would a natural site with people linking to it be that way? Even take Wikipedia and Google for example, some page from wikipedia show up in the results with www. and some without. This has been a huge source of pondering for me.
You make a good point, from a natural point of view, surely google would expect this. If you use google webmaster tools add both http://name and http://www.name to the verification. Surley Google will credit my site in terms of rankings with both URL's combined?
i want to add the most important is the quality of backlinks, and sometimes a website with few backlinks can beat you even if you have +1k website linking back to yours ( quality is more important)
these are two different methods to show your website in search..................if you link with www then your url with www get higher position...........................and else other without www................if you want to set it one then use webmaster tools...................
Make all your internal and external links only with www or only without it. If you want your website to be shown in Google with www in front make all your links with www. If you want both to be shown make as Christoph said
I think it's much better if you use a link with the www format. It's much easier for the internet to find our site.