New website branding, differences between http://www and http://
-
Hey Mozers!
We will be creating another brand pretty soon with some pretty cool interactive features and before we start development of the site I was wondering if there are any pros/cons to branding the site sans the www.
For example http://example123.com and http://www.example123.com. I would much prefer to brand it has http://example123.com but I just wanted to check first to see if that would have any negative SEO ramifications.
It seems that it might just be a preference as I looked at Facebook and Twitter and they both do it differently, same with Groupon and LivingSocial.
Looking forward to hearing from you guys!
-
Given that we know there isn't any difference from an SEO perspective it comes down to purely external factors. Some questions to think about...
- Are people going to constantly link to the www version any way?
- In a competitive space is one more eye-catching than the other?
- What's more memorable to the visitor?
-
Yea that was a concern I had going in, but I was thinking about it and in general when people link to different products or areas of the site I would assume they might just go copy the link from the url bar (at least that is what I do).
I wonder if the % is really enough to matter when people link to http://zebraswithhats or http://www.zebraswithhats - no thankfully that is not the domain
-
Oof, massive failure on my part lol, there just so happens to be this "check, this answered by question!" Thanks for pointing it out for me
-
Actually a pretty neat feature of the Q&A forum is that you can mark answers as helpful (which highlights the post in green and gives the person a shiny 3 MozPoints).
There should be a text link saying something like 'This answered my question' with a tick at the bottom of their posts which you can click (at least I think that's how to mark them, I've not asked a question yet :D)
-
More people out there are linking to the www.name version and even if you do the 301 redirect you will still lose some vote %.
Since it's a new brand and you are starting this now you should take your time and consider every aspect from the start and make your call based on all facts.
I always vote for the www version but that, beside the linking and look factor of the url is a personal thing.
-
Definately what I was looking for guys, thank you for the awesomely quick responses! I figured that it wasn't that big of a concern for SEO but since we are starting from scratch I just want to make sure its correct from the start! Tossed you both thumbs up!
-
The only difference is from the user perspective. Search engines treat both versions the same.
What you want to be careful about is maintaining consistency within your site. This is especially true at larger organizations with multiple publishing points. If everyone isn't made aware (and reminded from time to time) of this branding decision, inconsistencies will begin to pop up.
Furthermore, you should be sure to redirect all versions of pages to the option you choose. This is true for both the home page and all other pages. For example, if you choose http://example123.com...
- http://www.example123.com should be 301 redirected to http://example123.com
- http://www.example123.com/whatever should also be 301 redirected to http://example123.com/example123
Finally, be sure to share your choice with all parties that communicate externally. This includes PR, Social Media, Marketing, etc. for inclusion in their posts, your company boilerplate, emails, etc.
-
No difference from an SEO perspective. After the Q&A last year at SMX Advanced with Matt Cutts, I went up and asked him this very question. He said make sure one version redirects to the other, and if it is an existing site, Google will likely display the version with more pagerank. If this site is still in development, when you release it, have all links go to the sans www versions and make sure the www versions 301 redirect to the sans www URL's.
From a branding perspective, it only matters if you plan on displaying the .com on the page or in the logo or something like that. If you plan to display the .com, then sans www. Looks cleaner and just better recognition overall.
If you aren't planning to display the .com anywhere, then it really doesn't matter as hardly anyone outside this industry pays attention to which version of a URL they are on.
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
-
Please who can help me rank my website www.shopdocuments.com ?
Hi , i bought my website this month , i built it myself now i want it to grow seo on google pages and stuff tried google ads but they always block my account don't know why so somebody help me please any company? individual willing to work it for me ? even if paid company no problem
Technical SEO | | planetdocs1 -
Www to non-www redirect without loop still necessary?
Hi Guys, My question is: Is it still necessary to redirect www. to non www. version of your website or other way around?
Technical SEO | | gaben
I ask because I feel that Google should be able to read these as the same by now. Thank you in advance.
Gabe0 -
Do you still loose 15% of value of inbound links when you redirect your site from http to https (so all inbound links to http are being redirected to https version)?
I know when you redesign your on website, you loose about 15% internally due to the 301 redirects (see moz article: https://moz.com/blog/accidental-seo-tests-how-301-redirects-are-likely-impacting-your-brand), but I'm wondering if that also applies to value of inbound links when you redirect your http://www.sitename.com to https://www.sitename.com. I appreciate your help!
Technical SEO | | JBMediaGroup0 -
Mobile website indexing
Hi we have a mobile version of our website at mobile.gardening-services-edinburgh.com its been live for 5, maybe 6 months, it has its own mobile-sitemap.xml have tried submitting this sitemap to google and for some reason it does not index these pages any ideas, most welcome
Technical SEO | | McSEO0 -
Sitemap international websites
Hey Mozzers,Here is the case that I would appreciate your reply for: I will build a sitemap for .com domain which has multiple domains for other countries (like Italy, Germany etc.). The question is can I put the hreflang annotations in sitemap1 only and have a sitemap 2 with all URLs for EN/default version of the website .COM. Then put 2 sitemaps in a sitemap index. The issue is that there are pages that go away quickly (like in 1-2 days), they are localised, but I prefer not to give annotations for them, I want to keep clear lang annotations in sitemap 1. In this way, I will replace only sitemap 2 and keep sitemap 1 intact. Would it work? Or I better put everything in one sitemap?The second question is whether you recommend to do the same exercise for all subdomains and other domains? I have read much on the topic, but not sure whether it worth the effort.The third question is if I have www.example.it and it.example.com, should I include both in my sitemap with hreflang annotations (the sitemap on www.example.com) and put there it for subdomain and it-it for the .it domain (to specify lang and lang + country).Thanks a lot for your time and have a great day,Ani
Technical SEO | | SBTech0 -
Moving from www.domain.com/nameofblog to www.domain.com/blog
Describe your question in detail. The more information you give, the better! It helps give context for a great answer I have had my blog located at www.legacytravel.com/ramblings for a while. I now believe that, from an SEO perspective, it would be preferable to move it to www.legacytravel.com/blog. So, I want to be able to not lose any links (few though they may be) with the move. I believe I would need to do a 301 redirect in the htaccess file of www.legacytravel.com that will tell anyone who comes knocking on the door of www.legacytravel.com/ramblings/blah blah blah that now what they want is at www.legacytravel.com/blog/blah blah blah Is that correct? What would the entry look like in the htaccess? Thank you in advance.
Technical SEO | | cathibanks0 -
How can I change the page title "two" (artigos/page/2.html) in each category ?
I have some categories and photo galleries that have more than one page (i.e.: http://www.buffetdomicilio.com/category/artigos and http://www.buffetdomicilio.com/category/artigos/page/2). I think that I must change the tittle and description, but I don't how. I would like to know how can I change the title of each of them without stay with duplicate title and description. Thank you! ahcAORR.jpg
Technical SEO | | otimizador20130 -
Duplicate index.php/webpage pages on website. Help needed!
Hi Guys, Having a really frustrating problem with our website. It is a Joomla 1.7 site and we have some duplicate page issues. What is happening is that we have a webpage, lets say domain.com/webpage1 and then we also have domain.com/index.php/webpage1. Google is seeing these as duplicate pages and is causing me some real SEO problems. I have tried setting up a 301 redirect but it wn't let me redirect /index.php/webpage1 to /webpage1. Anyone have any ideas or plugins that can be used to sort this out? Any help will be really appreciated! Matt.
Technical SEO | | MatthewBarby0