Hi Guys, What is the different between http://www.abc.com and http://abc.com? I'm looking for technical explanation and also want to understand the SEO affects. In addition, what happen when I promote a site with inbound links to "http://www. example . com" and "http:// example . com". Does the link juice drain to one URL or two different ones? Thanks Anuja
A www and a non www version of the same website is viewed as two different websites by search engines. In principle they are the same but for search engines they are not. Possible downfalls: 1. Duplicate content issues as both versions will have the same content. 2. If you build in bound links for both these versions, both will get different amount of link juice depending on their back link portfolio. 3. Search engines will display different version of the website in search results. Quick fix: Go to Google webmaster tool and there is a option under settings which will allow you to set it right. Permanent fix: Canonical optimization. Permanently redirect one version to the other. Before you do that consider which version has good a better search engine standing.
that may create Canonical URL issue for your website and also your website may face multiple indexing problem....so just do redirection of http://abc.com to http://www.abc.com
It hardly matters for Google whether you are using www or with out www. As far my knowledge is concern more than 90% sites are with out .htaccesss ( for redirection of pages). Do u think all are duplicate?? If it is then Google should have been banned those sits but they are doing fantastic well in web market. So, conclusion is there is no such written matter from Google to define the % of duplicate content.
For google it might not matters but there could be other sites where this difference has significant value. I would suggest using www prefix everytime and modifying .htaccess to redirect domains with www prefix
I am agree with you. but concern is "Nancy Kneoteric" view. just look point 1 . What she is trying to point out is " duplicate content matter" for the particular site not to other sites. I definitely know your view regarding this.
Before I go on to explain anything, I would like to make two point: .htaccess is not the only way to implement redirects and works on for websites hosted on a Apache server (mod rewrite). Redirect for websites hosted on windows server is implemented in a different fashion. Secondly there is no 'duplicate content' penalty, it is just a filter wherein Google will not show pages in SERPs which it considers are duplicate. Thats all, your page would effectively stay in Google's index. While in case of a ban/penalty you website is most likely to be removed from their index or sand-boxed. Now to the issue in question. For Google, it is fairly simple to get around the canonical issue. Log in into Google webmaster tool, go into settings and set the preferred domain of your choice. Now this would solve the issue with Google but not with other search engine and that is why I recommended a permanent redirect (301). Also look at it from this perspective. Both the versions have a different back link profile and therefore your efforts are split. They may not stand a good chance separately but if you point all the links to a single version of your domain, its back link profile grows stronger. Since you have already built in bound links for both of them, it tedious (sometimes impossible) to go back to the respective webmasters and get them to change the URL. So the only option left is a permanent redirect. Will pass the link juice and I am assuming you know that. (Reason for my assumption - your screen name has SEO in it. God forsake.....). If you still can't figure it out, do some digging. I believe Google themselves have written several posts on canonical and duplicate content issues.