Do I need to set Preferred domain when the non-www redirects to www version?
-
Hi mozzers,
Not sure if I should setup preferred domain when the non www version redirects to the www version? if yes why?
Thanks!
-
Thank you Guys
Appreciate your help!
-
I call this a "belt & suspenders" situation, Taysir. If you don't want your pants to fall down, you put on a belt. If you want to be really, really sure your pants can't fall down, you put on a belt and then wear suspenders as well
The critical item is to have the correct 301 canonical redirection to a single version of your URL as you have done. Doing it this way communicates that information to all the search engines. (Setting a preferred domain in Google Webmaster tools only communicates to Google, not Bing or others.)
That said, since it only takes a few minutes to add the preferred domain settings in both Bing and Google Webmaster Tools, there's really no reason not to do it as well, as you're just giving yet another indication to back up what you redirect is telling them.
The "preferred domain" setting in GWT is primarily there to help out webmasters who are blocked by their hosting from creating the correct redirect rules. But as I say, no harm in being really, really sure
Does that make sense?
Paul
-
There's no "must" here, you can do it if you want. But as long as you are redirecting ALL non-www to the www version of it, you have nothing to worry about.
I redirect the non-www to the www but I set that up anyway, just in case
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
-
"sex" in non-adult domain name
I have a client with a domain that has "sex" in the domain name. For example, electronicsexpo.com. The domain ranks for a few keywords related to the services offered. It is an old domain that has been online for over 10 years. It ranks well for local keywords. No real SEO effort has been made on this domain, so it is rather a clean slate. I am going to be doing SEO on this site. Will the fact that the word "sex" exists in the name have any sort of negative consequence. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING adult related or pornographic on this site. I would think that search engines are sophisticated enough to differentiate, but would potential customers with things like parental filters be blocked from viewing content? Is this hurtful in anyway? If so, would I be better off changing domain names? TIA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Do links to a domain that re-directs to my domain pass link equity?
Hi guys. We've recently taken control of a third-party site and we're going to set up a domain re-direct so any traffic comes to our site. With any existing links that the third-party site has, will these pass link equity to our main site through the redirect? Thanks, Paul
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kevinliao0 -
Help understanding 301 domain redirect
Can anyone help me understand a specific process of a 301 redirecting a domain. Here is what I would like to know.... When you 301 redirect a site, most if not all the links follow to your new site. But how does this process happen? 1.When Google sees the new domain does it simply apply the backlink profile of the old site to the new one? 2. Does it have to re-crawl all the links one by one and apply them to the new domain? 3. or something else?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gazzerman10 -
Www vs. non-www differences in crawl errors in Webmaster tools...
Hey All, I have been working on an eCommerce site for a while that to no avail, continues to make me want to hang myself. To make things worth the developers just do not understand SEO and it seems every change they make just messes up work we've already done. Job security I guess. Anywho,most recently we realized they had some major sitemap issues as almost 3000 pages were submitted by only 20 or so were indexed. Well, they updated the sitemap and although all the pages are properly indexing, I now have 5000+ "not found" crawl errors in the non-www version of WMT and almost none in the www version of the WMT account. Anyone have insight as to why this would be?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RossFruin0 -
Redirect advice
My website has two versions of the homepage: http://www.nile-cruises-4u.co.uk/http://www.nile-cruises-4u.co.uk/index.cfmI wondered if I could set up a 301 redirect in the .htaccess file so that only the http://www.nile-cruises-4u.co.uk page was returned as the homepage?Colin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NileCruises0 -
How to set up 301 redirect for URL with question mark
I have encountered some issue with 301 redirect and htaccess file. I need to redirect the following url: http://www.domain.com/?specifications=colours/page/3 to: http://www.domain.com/colours The 301 redirect command I wrote in htaccess file is as follow: Redirect 301 /?specifications=colours/page/3 http://www.domain.com/colours And it doesn't work at the moment. What is the correct way to set up 301 redirect here? Your help will be sincerely appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robotseo0 -
How to conduct catch 301 redirects & have the separate 301 redirects for the key pages
Hi, We've currently done a site migration mapping and 301 redirecting only the sites key pages. However two GWT (Google Webmaster Tools) is picking a massive amount of 404 areas and there has been some drop in rankings. I want to mitigate the site from further decline, and hence thought about doing a catch 301 - that is 301 redirecting the remaining pages found on the old site back to the home page, with the future aim of going through each URL one by one to redirect them to the page which is most relevant. Two questions, (1) can I do a catch 301 and if so what is the process and requirements that I have to give to the developer? (2) How do you reduce the number of increasing 404 errors from a site, despite doing 301 redirects and updating links on external linking sites. Note: The server is apache and the site is hosted on Wordpress platform. Regards, Vahe
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vahe.Arabian0 -
Redirecting, then redirecting back
Hey, mozzers! My first question ever... I have a client who has (fictitionally) WickerPatioHomeStore.com, which features wicker home decor. Not too long ago, they wanted a shorter, easier URL, so they redirected to another domain they own, WickerPatio.com (again, fictional). They saw somewhat of a drop in traffic, and wonder if there's a correlation with the words "home store" not being in their domain any more. When considering the two, I figure that relevant factors would be age of domains, history of content of the domains, and inbound links to each domain. Any thoughts on other things to consider? Thanks very much!! ~ Scott
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GRIP-SEO0