Www v.s non www

[theLotter]

The canonical URLs (and all our link building efforts) is on the www version of the site.

However, the site is having a massive technical problem and need to redirect some links (some of which are very important) from the www to the non www version of the site (for these pages the canonical link is still the www version).

How big of a SEO problem is this?

Can you please explain the exact SEO dangers?

Thanks!

[theLotter]

Thanks for all your responses - I will use this as the basis of my answer to the technical team.

[Dr-Pete]

I'm endorsing Stephen's idea, because if you really have no choice, I think it's a good potential alternative. THB's comments (which I thumbed up) are very important, though.

If you really have no choice, I do think the 302 is safer here - the canonical tag should override it. There is some risk, though, and it's definitely not ideal.

I'm not clear on the problem, but could you return a 503? It basically says "We've got a temporary problem - come back later" and, if it really is temporary, Google won't de-index the pages. If you're talking a couple of days, this may be a better solution. If you're talking a few weeks, you may have to take Stephen's advice. You might want to pull in expert help, though, because my gut reaction is that there's a better way to fix what's broken here.

[THB]

Hehe.

Generally speaking, and I've actually come across this quite a bit lately, it's better to just put your efforts towards fixing the technical issues than to try and manipulate the site using redirects and canonical tags.  But it's easy to say when it's not my technical problem, nor my money/time on the line to fix it!  However, that is always the best-case scenario in my opinion.

[stevecounsell]

Agreed. It's a problem waiting to bite you in the proverbials....

[THB]

I worry about setting up a canonical tag that points to a URL Google can't access (as it's just being redirected via 302 back to the non-www version anytime it will try and read the canonical URL).  And since a canonical tag is kinda sorta like a 301, you'd ultimately be 301'ing (kinda sorta) back to the www version, only to have a 302 header sent, 302'ing Google back to the non-www.  And endless loop, so-to-speak.  I'm not sure how Google would handle this.

How about just working 24/7 to resolve the "technical problem" that is causing this?  I know, easy for me to say

[stevecounsell]

I'm no expert on this but I think you'll be fine IF you:

1 - 302 redirect (temporary redirect) to the non-www page

2 - Add a rel canonical on the non-www page giving the WWW version link credit.

When you've fixed your tech issues remove the 302 redirect.

I THINK google will play nice on this.

Hope that helps

Steve