Http or www...what is the difference?

I'm confused about the difference between http and www. For instance, http:// bluewidgets.com and http://ww w .bluewidgets.com (spaces inserted to prevent linking). In the search engines, they are two different web sites, right? And yet you can type in either one and get to the same site.

1. Does this mean you can choose either one as the URL you link to when getting backlinks?
2. Do you need to pick one URL or the other and stick with it while backlinking to get the best rankings from Google?
3. Does the face that the site is a blog have anything to do with the prefix?

 

They are the same websites and yet can be regarded as different web portals, yes. Everything begins with your linking strategies and website maintenance.

Sometimes it is the matter of preference, if you have been regularly adding links to your http://www. so continue doing this and do not shift to http:// because this would make Google and other search engines confused and can damage your website getting indexed and ranking.

 

You could perform a 301 redirect so that all queries redirect to only one version.

In your Webmaster Tools account, you could also specify your preference.

 

it does not matter which one you use, I prefer www, but the idea is to not have "two" websites when there is only one.
Search engine thinks http:// and http://www. are two different sites/pages. You get duplicate contents of course.

 

I agree. I have seen this first hand on a couple of my websites. They are different - especially in the short run. Google does process redirects, but the backlinks that pass through a redirect may be devalued

 

You could create a .htaccess file and do this:

That way, when someone goes to domain.com, they get redirected to www.domain.com

 

I have a site that I created with wordpress. it is just http, but when I was trying to build links i was using http://www. When I check my backlinks, I get different amount of backlinks for both links.

Start using www. now so that when people are linking to you, they will write the link you want

 

Where in Webmaster Tools is that found? Would it also be on my hosting account cPanel?

Of my active sites (which are all on the same server), when I type in www + domain, 4 of 5 sites automatically direct to non-www version. All 3 blogs and 1 web site. However, 1 web site which is a info ext, does not redirect from the www version.

What the heck is going on with this?

 

they are the same, but you'd better choose one, and let the other one jump to the one you choose.