WWW vs non-WWW?

mouhuyjhakshys

New Member
I am seeing in google webmaster tool, they are suggesting me to set www or non-www for my new site.

which is better for SEO? or I should leave to google decide which is the best?
 

PTTed

Active Member
I am seeing in google webmaster tool, they are suggesting me to set www or non-www for my new site.

which is better for SEO? or I should leave to google decide which is the best?

www vs. non www is irrelevant for SEO purposes on a new domain.

But, in order to avoid duplicate content issues on your site make sure you 301 redirect the one you don't choose to the one you do choose. For example, if you decide to go without the www then you should 301 redirect all the www to the non www using wildcards.

The reason you want to do that is because Google sees www.thispage.com as a completely different page than thispage.com It will see those as two different web pages on two different domains. So Google can see those two pages as duplicate content if you don't do the 301 redirect. This is a common issue on ecommerce websites.

Wordpress automatically takes care of the redirect for you if your site is based on Wordpress.

If you have an older domain that has some juicy links pointing to it then you might want to choose the version of the domain that has the best links pointing to it. The reason you might want to do that is because there is a small amount of PageRank lost through a 301 redirect. So you might want to lose as little as possible. In 99.9% of situations that isn't going to be a factor though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ims

elcidofaguy

Active Member
^^ In addition to the above you also need to also use the canonical tag which ensures link juice is consolidated to your chosen page/url format... i.e. place this is within <head> section of your code:

Code:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://yourwebsite.com/blog" />

In the above example the link juice is consolidated to the URL without the 'www' prefix..

Hope that helps!
 

ulterios

Well-Known Member
This just all comes down to a personal preference in most cases. If you have an existing site or one that you bought that was existing then most of the time it would be best to stick with what it has been. If you have a new site then just pick one and then make sure to do proper 301's from the one you aren't using to the one that you are.

Most of the time I tend to use the "www" unless the domain name is long, but that's just preference. ;)
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
With or without the "www" will not matter as long as you make sure to set your site up with the proper redirects to the one that you choose.
I like to use the "www" but that's probably because that was how I was brought into websites long ago.

Plus, look which way Google has theirs set up. They use the "www".

Cheers, Dean.
 

vishwa

Active Member
It is a long debated question and has been asking on every online forums and community. It really doesn't matter if you use www or Non www, You can use any of them. But make sure you use one at a time. That means if you use non www make sure that www also redirects to non www otherwise Google consider it as a duplicate site.
 

ulterios

Well-Known Member
It is a long debated question and has been asking on every online forums and community. It really doesn't matter if you use www or Non www, You can use any of them. But make sure you use one at a time. That means if you use non www make sure that www also redirects to non www otherwise Google consider it as a duplicate site.
Good advice. Many people will setup their website one way or another and they don't do the redirects for the one they are not using. New website and blog owners do this a lot because they don't even know about them. If their website is running good then they are happy and they don't realize that without the redirects your rankings can be affected.
 

Storm

Active Member
Neither one makes a difference in seo as long as you set them up correctly so I suggest that you pick the one that you like the best and go with it.
 

Traveler

Active Member
I do not think that either one makes a difference for seo. You can check the top websites in the world and some use the www and some do not use it. I think if it made a difference then the top websites would all use the one that is better.
 

Storm

Active Member
I think if it made a difference then the top websites would all use the one that is better.
I never thought of that but it makes sense. It seems like there is a mix of both among the top sites on the internet.
 

Scott C Baxter

New Member
I've always used non www, but like everyone said above, there is no difference as long as you redirect the one you choose not to use.
 

KeralMTG

Active Member
I do not think it much matters for seo. I pick the one I think the website will look the best with. Usually I like the www for mine but not always.
 

Maria Marketing

Active Member
I don't know if www or non www is better for seo but I do see many more websites using the www than I see websites without the www. I think maybe that might just be because most websites used to use the www.
 

JennyJ

Member
Thanks for the information everyone. I was wondering if it made any difference or not. Someone told me that www websites will get better results in Google so I wanted to know if it's true.

I will be starting another blog soon and was trying to decide on if I should use the www or not. I think I will not use it on my new blog.
 

ulterios

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the information everyone. I was wondering if it made any difference or not. Someone told me that www websites will get better results in Google so I wanted to know if it's true.

I will be starting another blog soon and was trying to decide on if I should use the www or not. I think I will not use it on my new blog.
Some domain names look good without the www and some look good with it, it all depends. If you are using one of the new TLD domains sometimes using the www helps people realize that it's a real domain. ;)
 
Top