Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Www vs non-www which is better?
-
Is it better to have all your pages point to the www version or non www version.
-
I am needing help with this same thing. Did you ever find a solution to redirecting with yahoo web hosting? TIA
-
Joel, i prefer www version cause i think from a technical perspective, there are several benefits to including the WWW.
- Ability to restrict cookies when using multiple subdomains. Cookies of a main domain (i.e. example.com) are sent to all subdomains: If you are going to have subdomains for other purposes (blog for instance), you may want to differentiate the sites and have a www prefix for the regular site.
- WWW actually MEANS something. As mentioned above, WWW is a hostname, and the hostname names the specific service being used a computer network; WWW names the web service for a domain.
- Using the WWW hostname allows for easy segregation in the file structure of your website. Everything in the “www” folder (and at the www.example.com domain) is directly related to serving the site to the public. This allows for simple root-level site organization, eg you could also have a dev folder and have a subdomain dev.example.com for your development site, etc.
- More flexibility with DNS. Your domain’s “Zone” file controls where traffic to your domain is directed and using the non-WWW version of your domain can complicate things.
you may still want to use the WWW simply because it’s conventional to do so. On a business card, the WWW clearly conveys, This is our address on the World Wide Web. People are used to looking for, and seeing, the WWW and that’s sufficient reason for many to stick to the convention
-
Personally, I'd dump yahoo hosting and have my stuff hosted elsewhere. For less than $40/mo you can get hosting and have access to edit the .htaccess file to your heart's content.
-
I spoke with Yahoo, apparently they only offer the 301 redirect for the higher cost hosting plans that run about $40. Any ideas?
-
-
Ok, does anyone know how to do a proper 301 redirect in yahoo web hosting?
-
As long as your consistent, but it just comes down to which have the higest ranksing if on an existing site.
I tend to prefer non-www for new sites as its less typing and un-necessary.
There is a moment for non-www http://no-www.org/
-
There is no better method they do not affect rankings, it is purely personal preference. However you must implement proper redirect rules to resolve http://mysite.com to http://www.mysite.com or vice versa which ever one you choose.
I tend to always go for www. as it just looks better to me.
-
I prefer www, because folks will generally tend to use that version when they link to you. It's reflex.
But you can check this. Run Open Site Explorer for both versions of your domain.
If more people link to you using 'www' than non-www, use www and 301 redirect the non-www to www.
If more people use non-www, do the reverse.
-
If you do choose to keep the www, make sure you have redirects in place so when a user doesn't enter the www, he or she will get to your home page. Just FYI, www.domain.com is a subdomain of domain.com, so if your site can be access through both, search engines view these as two different pages and possibly split rankings.
-
Neither one is better, but whichever one you choose, make sure you remain consistent for your entire site.
As for me, I use the www because that's what google uses.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Non Published Wordpress Pages
Hi, Is there any negative SEO consequences from having too many pages private or not published. Can it like slow the site down or does it not matter? Someone in my dept. has so many pages started/not complete and besides being messy, I wonder if it has any negative impact on the site. Thanks
Technical SEO | | aua1 -
Is it better to use XXX.com or XXX.com/index.html as canonical page
Is it better to use 301 redirects or canonical page? I suspect canonical is easier. The question is, which is the best canonical page, YYY.com or YYY.com/indexhtml? I assume YYY.com, since there will be many other pages such as YYY.com/info.html, YYY.com/services.html, etc.
Technical SEO | | Nanook10 -
301 redirect: canonical or non canonical?
Hi, Newbie alert! I need to set up 301 redirects for changed URLs on a database driven site that is to be redeveloped shortly. The current site uses canonical header tags. The new site will also use canonical tags. Should the 301 redirects map the canonical URL on the old site to the corresponding canonical for the new design . . . or should they map the non canonical database URLs old and new? Given that the purpose of canonicals is to indicate our preferred URL, then my guess is that's what I should use. However, how can I be sure that Google (for example) has indexed the canonical in every case? Thx in anticipation.
Technical SEO | | ztalk1120 -
CNAME vs 301 redirect
Hi all, Recently I created a website for a new client and my next job is trying to get them higher in Google. I added them in OSE and noticed some strange backlinks. To my surprise the client has about 20 domain names. All automatically poiting to (showing) the same new mainsite now. www.maindomain.nl www.maindomain.be
Technical SEO | | Houdoe
www.maindomain.eu
www.maindomain.com
www.otherdomain.nl
www.otherdomain.com
... Some of these domains have backlinks too (but not so much). I suggested to 301 redirect them all to the main site. Just to avoid duplicate content. But now the webhoster comes into play: "It's a problem, client has only 1 hosting account, blablabla...". They told me they could CNAME the 20 domains to the main domain. Or A-record them to an IP address. This is too technical stuff for me. So my concrete questions are: Is it smart to do anything at all or am I just harming my client? The main site is ranking pretty well now. And some backlinks are from their copy sites (probably because everywhere the logo links to the full mainsite url). Does the CNAME or A-record solution has the same effect as a 301 redirect, from SEO perspective? Many thanks,
Hans0 -
Meta Description VS Rich Snippets
Hello everyone, I have one question: there is a way to tell Google to take the meta description for the search results instead of the rich snippets? I already read some posts here in moz, but no answer was found. In the post was said that if you have keywords in the meta google may take this information instead, but it's not like this as i have keywords in the meta tags. The fact is that, in this way, the descriptions are not compelling at all, as they were intended to be. If it's not worth for ranking, so why google does not allow at least to have it's own website descriptions in their search results? I undestand that spam issues may be an answer, but in this way it penalizes also not spammy websites that may convert more if with a much more compelling description than the snippets. What do you think? and there is any way to fix this problem? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | socialengaged
Eugenio0 -
Root directory vs. subdirectories
Hello. How much more important does Google consider pages in the root directory relative to pages in a subdirectory? Is it best to keep the most important pages of a site in the root directory? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | nyc-seo0 -
Sitefinity vs Wordpress
We're looking for a new CMS and out development company suggested Sitefinity. I've had great success with Wordpress. Is either system better. I love worpdress but have had no experience with Sitefinity. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | StandUpCubicles0 -
Keywords in file names vs folder names
We understand the value of a keyword phrase included in the URL. Is there more value to having that phrase in the folder name of the URL or the file name or does it matter? Example: http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design.php or http://www.biztoolsone.com/website-design/ Which is best? Thanks, Wick Smith
Technical SEO | | wcksmith0