What is the exact difference between http://xyz.com and http://www.xyz.com

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by gr8liverpoolfan, Aug 26, 2006.

  1. #1
    What is the exact difference between http://xyz.com and http://www.xyz.com from an SEO point of view??

    For example,even though I know predicted PR is a bit of a farce,it shows different scores for both...:confused:

    So would it be advisable to do all your links exchange with http://www or http://? Do both of them get treated differently??

    Thanks for reading ...
     
    gr8liverpoolfan, Aug 26, 2006 IP
  2. sizzler_chetan

    sizzler_chetan Prominent Member

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    #2
    sizzler_chetan, Aug 26, 2006 IP
  3. happymondays

    happymondays Well-Known Member

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    #3
    Point all your links to one of them. Which one you will use is up to you however the majority of the webmasters use www.

    Sorry to say SEs tend to regard them as two website... I mean the same domain with and without www.
     
    happymondays, Aug 26, 2006 IP
  4. gr8liverpoolfan

    gr8liverpoolfan Notable Member

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    #4
    Any specific benefits you do not get when you do not use the www.??:confused:
     
    gr8liverpoolfan, Aug 26, 2006 IP
  5. Rod

    Rod Well-Known Member

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    #5
    To MSN and Yahoo there is no difference. To Google they are different sites.

    For a long time Google only indexed the non www version of my site and mucked up the page ranks by assigning a higher rank to the non www version. I asked Google how to solve this problem and they recommended I redirect my non www prefix site to my www site.

    Now the www version is indexed fine on Google, but they ranked it lower than the non www version. Go figure!
     
    Rod, Aug 26, 2006 IP
  6. happymondays

    happymondays Well-Known Member

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    #6
    The www thing is an agreement anyway. It means domains on the world wide web looks like www.domainname.tld When creating a zone file for your domain, it's obligatory to create the entry like domainname.tld (accessible through the Internet as http://domainname.tld) It is strongly suggested to add a www.domainname.tld record too, because the most of people expect to find your website there. Adding www to your domain is exactly the same like adding a subdomain, like subdomain.domainname.tld. In other words, this www is a common subdomain on every domain...
     
    happymondays, Aug 26, 2006 IP
  7. sizzler_chetan

    sizzler_chetan Prominent Member

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  8. happymondays

    happymondays Well-Known Member

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    #8
    As I said before, most of the webmasters use the www. So when they link to your site without consulting you or taking your money, (which is rare) they most likely will use www. If you are on the other hand spend your efforts to popularize the site without using www, you know.

    No real difference anyway.
     
    happymondays, Aug 27, 2006 IP
  9. gr8liverpoolfan

    gr8liverpoolfan Notable Member

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    #9
    Sorry if this is a bit of a newbie question....if both the sites are treated the same in yahoo...then why do some sites throw up different results when u type in site:http://www. and site:http:// ???
     
    gr8liverpoolfan, Aug 27, 2006 IP
  10. happymondays

    happymondays Well-Known Member

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    #10
    I think all SEs regards them as two websites.
     
    happymondays, Aug 27, 2006 IP
  11. bizhobby

    bizhobby Peon

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    #11
    If you haven't already done so... sign up for Google Sitemaps!

    It allows you to see how Google sees your website, what potential problems there are and on top of everything you can tell it that www.domain.com and domain.com are the same (even tell it which one you prefer)
     
    bizhobby, Aug 27, 2006 IP
  12. gr8liverpoolfan

    gr8liverpoolfan Notable Member

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    #12
    Ok thanks for the replies everybody. So if I started with one of the two,I better continue with the same....:)
    And,can somebody answer Chetan's question on the top of the page...Beats me too:confused:
     
    gr8liverpoolfan, Aug 29, 2006 IP
  13. stlgatekeeper

    stlgatekeeper Peon

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    #13
    They are viewed as two distinct entities af far as SE spiders are concerned.

    You need to make sure your inbound links use either the www or the non-www

    Whatever choice you make, make sure your sites internal linking architecture emulates the same thing.

    Reminds me of a clients site... it was a mess with www and non-www links. Took about 3 months for the SE's to get everything straight once we tweaked it.

    The good thing though... is you'll find some more links!
     
    stlgatekeeper, Aug 29, 2006 IP
  14. Zadah

    Zadah Peon

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    #14
    The www is depreciated. http://no-www.org/

    I find it a real pain when the site is only accessible with the WWW.
     
    Zadah, Aug 29, 2006 IP
  15. stlgatekeeper

    stlgatekeeper Peon

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    #15
    really a pain?
    I find it gives a slight "umph" to the seo work... perhaps just the little bit extra needed to bump it up.
     
    stlgatekeeper, Aug 29, 2006 IP
  16. gr8liverpoolfan

    gr8liverpoolfan Notable Member

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    gr8liverpoolfan, Sep 1, 2006 IP
  17. happymondays

    happymondays Well-Known Member

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    #17
    Theoretically they handle them as same for a long time... Still, there is always a difference in PR. What do you call that if not different entities?
     
    happymondays, Sep 17, 2006 IP
  18. williamtan

    williamtan Peon

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    #18
    Still not entirely sure to go for www or without.

    Nevertheless, for my cases, it seems that those without www tend to have higher PR.

    Hence, I've settled for without www as the visitor need not type the www (the less thing you need your visitors to do the better rite?).
     
    williamtan, Sep 17, 2006 IP
  19. kuyaedz

    kuyaedz Peon

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    #19
    I just spent some time on no-www org and I agree with their philosophy. I long ago dropped the www. from my URL requests as it is just added keystrokes.

    Considering redirects are frowned upon, would it be horrible to redirect any www request to the root domain instead? (all of my link building is done via the root domain)
     
    kuyaedz, Sep 17, 2006 IP