www. or no?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by inaga, Jul 15, 2009.

  1. Selena21

    Selena21 Peon

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    #21
    One should consider only that links should point out the same domain whether you use www. or not.
     
    Selena21, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  2. Rogi

    Rogi Active Member

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    #22
    No diff, use any of them.
     
    Rogi, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  3. bilgi

    bilgi Well-Known Member

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    #23
    i use www but .domainname.com is better I think
     
    bilgi, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  4. Stella_Roberts

    Stella_Roberts Peon

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    #24
    Having url's with or without 'www' hardly has any impact. But the search engines see the two url's as different pages and your link equity gets split between them. You really need to forward one version to the other to prevent this.
     
    Stella_Roberts, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  5. Jalpari

    Jalpari Notable Member

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    #25
    www is preferable and good
     
    Jalpari, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  6. pankajdelhi

    pankajdelhi Peon

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    #26
    Hello,
    I also like to use www.domainname.com.

    If we are using linux hosting then we can redirect domainname.com to www.domainname.com but when we used windows hosting then what we can do, do you have any idea??
     
    pankajdelhi, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  7. Canonical

    Canonical Well-Known Member

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    #27

    Makes absolutely no difference from an SEO perspective... none. Which you pick is totally up to your preference... what you think sounds good... what rolls off the tongue better... what you think will be easier for your consumers to remember... The key is to pick one version (www or non-www) as the canonical URL and 301 redirect requests for the non-canonical to the canonical version. This will prevent canonicalization issues which lead to duplicate content and split link equity/split page rank.
     
    Canonical, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  8. SEOmann

    SEOmann Guest

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    #28
    I never use the www - short as possible, short is always better.
     
    SEOmann, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  9. cipals15

    cipals15 Well-Known Member

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    #29
    Make sure search engines do know that domain.com and www.domain.com are the same. Google offers an option on webmastertools. I don't know with other search engines.
     
    cipals15, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  10. Canonical

    Canonical Well-Known Member

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    #30
    You need to do this by 301 redirection if at all possible (for instance, using Mod Rewrite/.htaccess files) to insure ALL search engines know your canonical URL. You can also set it in Google WMT but it's really not necessary if you have solved canonicalization problems properly with 301 redirects.

    If you choose www as your canonical ("preferred") URL then 301 redirect all requests for non-www URLs to the www canonical version of the URL.

    If you choose the non-www as your canonical URL then 301 redirect all requests for www URLs to the non-www canonical version of the URL.
     
    Canonical, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  11. Frost813

    Frost813 Peon

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    #31
    As far as a web browser is concerned, it makes absolutely no difference which version you choose to use, as both will work.

    Regarding your link building strategies, this is where the difference will be seen. Google doesn't rank sites, it ranks URL's. So, this is what happens when you're inconsistent:

    www.yoursite.com - 300 links
    yoursite.com - 400 links

    Clearly your site has 700 backlinks that you've worked hard to get. When Google looks at these links though, it doesn't see 700 pointing to the same site, it sees 300 for one, and 400 for another. This dilutes your link building work. This can however be solved with this .htaccess rewrite code.

    You can read more about the redirects here: http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php
     
    Frost813, Jul 16, 2009 IP
  12. HansonBro

    HansonBro Peon

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    #32
    canonicalisation issue is by far the most common tech seo error being made, splitting link juice and can give you duplicate worries. www or non-www don't matter, but pick one of them. then re-direct non-www (or vice versa) and index.html, index.phpm default.asp whatever to your canonical chosen url.
     
    HansonBro, Jul 16, 2009 IP