To www, or not to www....that is the question

Ok. This question spawned from my Google Web Master tools.

Here's a bit of background:
I have a Wordpress blog. I created a Google XML sitemap using a plugin (you can read about the plugin I used here ).

When I then logged into the Google Webmaster Tools portal, to enter the URL of my sitemap , there were errors. The reason being, that the sitemap was generated with 'www' at the start of each URL, whereas in the Google Webmaster Tools I had set up the site as breadmilkdigital.com (without the 'www').

The short term fix was easy - I simply set up www.breadmilkdigital.com as the account in Google Webmaster.

However long term, I want to know which is better for SEO. To www, or not to www, that is the question...

 

No difference, as long as you specify one and stick with it. I personally prefer the .www since that's what many people are pre-conditioned to type. (Or so it seems.) That and I tend to use subdomains for different things, like mail (mail.domain.tld) and so forth.

 

It doesn't matter which you pick. Either way you're fine.

If I'm going to be developing subdomains, I use the www ...but that's not for SEO. I do it so I can create a roll-up profile in Google Analytics, while also separating each subdomain into it's own profile.

 

Ok cool, thanks for your responses gents.

I've noticed I'm currently indexed for both www and non-www in Google. How do I just stick with the www version?

 

Use a 301 redirect to redirect all the non www. pages to the www pages

You can do so by editing the .htacess file using this code

RewriteEngine on 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourwebsite\.com 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourwebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L] 

Code (markup):

 

I say its better to try to stick with WWW because most people who will link to you will use WWW

 

Webmaster Tools -» Settings -» Preferred domain

Learn more about setting a preferred domain

 

Sweet, thanks so much to you all!

 

I just typed breadmilkdigital.com into my browser, and it automatically redirected to www.breadmilkdigital.com.

This was before I edited the .htaccess file as per the above instructions. Why was it already re-directing? Maybe a Wordpress feature I have overlooked already?

 

Good luck!

 

bothe are same. But always try to use one of it While u start promotion. create BL on the one URl either www. or without it. But don make mixed ,google will take the avarage from the bothe URl

 

Use whichever you prefer, there is no benefit either way. Just make sure you're consistant with linking.

 

You can set your preferred domain (www or non-www) in Google Webmaster Tools.

 

just pick one and be consistent with it

 

Either way it doesn't matter to search engines but users prefer www. Also what ever you decide stick to it through out.

 

It is better if set the url without www. There is one option in webmaster tools "set preferred domain" you can set url without www. option from here.

 

Wordpress does this automatically if you type in the address as "www" in the settings. I also do a 301 redirect on my sites just to be safe but wp does it by default if you type in the "blog address" with a www

 

Cool, thanks for letting me know, this is something I'd never considered in Wordpress before now. Could be costing me valuable traffic!

 

Yeah i'm the same, i prefer www on domains and http on subdomains. Other than being more traditional, i do it because:

site:http://domain.com will bring up subdomains also making it damn difficult to see URL's on just www.domain.com without listing all the subs. An example is Wordpress.com who use http, if you do a site:http://wordpress.com the whole top 50 is filled with peoples blogs on subdomains and no pages actually from Wordpress.

So yes there is a slight difference, also never use the Webmaster Tools "Preferred Domain" feature always do it server side.

 

I allways use 301 re-direct to www.