Do I need to verify my site on webmaster both with and without the "www." at the start?
-
As per title, is it necessary to verify a site on webmaster twice, with and without the "www"?
I only ask as I'm about to submit a disavow request, and have just read this:
NB: Make sure you verify both the http:website.com and http://www.website.com versions of your site and submit the links disavow file for each. Google has said that they view these as completely different sites so it’s important not to forget this step. (here)
Is there anything in this? It strikes me as more than a bit odd that you need to submit a site twice.
-
Yes, that's generally considered the correct way of doing it if you have links to both www and non-www.
-
Thanks, Chris. Do I need to tailor the disavow request for each version? i.e. only links that point to our domain with the www subdomain in one list and non www in a separate list?
-
In GWT, if you tell Google that you have a preferred domain (www or non www) it will require that you verify both versions. You're not able submit a disavow file for a domain that you have not been verified for, so if you have links pointing to non-www, you need to be verified for that domain before you can submit your disavow file for it--and vise versa.
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
-
Solved Should I consolidate my "www" and "non-www" pages?
My page rank for www and non-www is the same. In one keyword instance, my www version performs SO much better. Wanting to consolidate to one or the other. My question is as to whether all these issues would ultimately resolve to my chosen consolidated domain (i.e. www or non-www) regardless of which one I choose. OR, would it be smart to choose the one where I am already ranking high for this significant keyword phrase? Thank you in advance for your help.
Technical SEO | | meditationbunny0 -
My site Has Penalized By google Search Result Without Any Spam Score.
I Recently Make a Site Gizmocombot.com. tHE aITE has NO spam Record NO lousy BACKLINK.it has all unique article can anyone tell us how we can unpenalized our site from google webmaster and google search Result. i attcead a screenshot as well yoou need. 3nzmALp
Technical SEO | | litoginamaaba3332 -
Rel="canonical" again
Hello everyone, I should rel="canonical" my 2 languages website /en urls to the original version without /en. Can I do this from the header.php? Should I rel="canonical" each /en page (eg. en/contatti, en/pagina) separately or can I do all from the general before the website title? Thanks if someone can help.
Technical SEO | | socialengaged0 -
Rel="next"
Hi I was just wondering if there is any difference in using rel='next' rather than rel="next". Would it still work the same way? I mean using the apostrophes differently, would it matter? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | pikka0 -
Site rebuild without HTML extension = broken links?
I have a client and his site is pure HTML. He made huge amount of link building with some hundreds of links point to example.com/target.HTML Now we decided to use WordPress with the same site structure. If we use the exact same URLs but without the HTML ending will it cause broken links? Is there any best practice for this kind of change? Many thanks for any idea!
Technical SEO | | seozoltan0 -
Wordpress & use of 'www' vs not for webmaster tools - explanation needed
I am having a hard time understanding the issue of canonization of site pages, specifically in regards to the 'www' or 'non-www' versions of a site. And specifically in regards to wordpress. I can see that it doesn't matter whether you type in 'www' or not in the url for a wordpress site, what is going on in the back end that allows this? When I link up to google webmaster tools, should i use www or not? thanks for any help d
Technical SEO | | dnaynay0 -
Should this site start again on a new domain
Hi We have not done SEO on this site they have used another company who looks like they outsourced and the links have been built by a third party all blog networks and this company have said they cannot get the links removed. Google flagged artificial links on this web site in February and in April it lost over 10000 visitors in a month and its just free falled ever since. The categories have been recreated and no redirects created due to the amount of backlinks from the blog sites to the original category pages but the site is not recovering its down to 1500 visitors a month and used to get 14000 a month. So should my customer ditch the domain and move this site to fresh domain? http://www.kids-beds-online.com Any answers would really be appreciated. thanks Tracy
Technical SEO | | dashesndots0 -
Partial Site Move -- Tell Google Entire Site Moved?
OK this one's a little confusing, please try to follow along. We recently went through a rebranding where we brought a new domain online for one of our brands (we'll call this domain 'B' -- it's also not the site linked to in my profile, not to confuse things). This brand accounted for 90% of the pages and 90% of the e-comm on the existing domain (we'll call the existing domain 'A') . 'A' was also redesigned and it's URL structure has changed. We have 301s in place on A that redirect to B for those 90% of pages and we also have internal 301s on A for the remaining 10% of pages whose URL has changed as a result of the A redesign What I'm wondering is if I should tell Google through webmaster tools that 'A' is now 'B' through the 'Change of Address' form. If I do this, will the existing products that remain on A suffer? I suppose I could just 301 the 10% of URLs on B back to A but I'm wondering if Google would see that as a loop since I just got done telling it that A is now B. I realize there probably isn't a perfect answer here but I'm looking for the "least worst" solution. I also realize that it's not optimal that we moved 90% of the pages from A to B, but it's the situation we're in.
Technical SEO | | badgerdigital0