Keep www in the domain or not?
-
I have a client who had a wordpress website built about 1.5 years ago without the www in front of the domain. In May of this year client decided to have his website rebuilt. The new web designer built the site in Joomla and changed hosting company (first website hosted by Go Daddy) the new web designer built the new site with the www in front of the domain. He put redirects from the old to the new. Client wants to go back to wordpress design. My question is: do we keep the www as the new site has this or revert back to the domain without the www. (domains are the same between the new and old site, only difference is old site has no www and new site does) web designer put in redirects to go from non www site to new site with www however I don't think he did it right. New site is still getting errors and when I look in the hosting account there are 9 pages of redirects. The old and new site are not that big. The hosting company tech support was a little shocked that there were 9 pages of redirects. My question is: will client loose what momentum we've built with redirecting traffic to the www new site? We've been working hard since the new site launched to get it indexed. Thoughts? Feedback please. We are going to move back to wordpress platform but I'm not sure about this www whether we keep it or not. I just don't want to mess up any indexing that we've achieved with the new site if we revert back to the domain without the www in front of it. Thank you
-
I do have lots of experience personally and professionally on WWW and non-WWW websites.
I guess you have expertise in WP and SEO, so giving only main points to determine without explaining the story of SEO and WORDPRESS.
Lets consider the example scenario:
domain.com occupies 9 characters in the search engine URL data
www.domain.com occupies 12 characters in the search engine URL data (extra 3 characters)if you are very much serious about SEO and wanted to rank and optimize your site for search engine traffic better to remove WWW in the website URL
Points to remember: 1. Inform google webmaster tools about your website (either www or non-www)
2. use .htaccess from www to non-www redirection
3. Use Wordpress Redirection plugin initially for monitoring what urls are being redirected and howIf you aware of Canonical URL concept, please go ahead and use properly
www.example.com
example.com/
www.example.com/index.html
example.com/index.phpNote: As you might be using Wordpress, using SEO Plugin will help you in applying a Canonial URL
When to use What - if you are looking for branding and not expecting too much search traffic use the extra WWW prefix
- if you are only interested to get search traffic and the website is not a brand (example: services, blog, keyword-rich domain) remove WWW
-
If there's that many redirects, I'd agree something is off - which is a bigger concern.
-
Thanks for your responses. So to clarify you both think we should stick with the way we originally had it (before the redesign) I don't think the new web guy set up the re-directs correctly to go from first site (old one) to the 2nd site (new one)
-
I agree with Mike. Keep what you had, since it's part of the online brand at this point. And redirects are harmless, assuming they are done correctly and people can find your site (without the feeling like they are dealing with something spammy).
-
There is no definitive benefit of having WWW vs. not having WWW... best to choose one and stick to it. If you're switching from one to the other, make sure that all of the necessary redirects are correct and change your preferred domain in Google Webmaster Tools. My personal opinion would be to stick with the way they had it originally when it was first set up.
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
-
Verification of https domain in webmaster tool
Hi guys, I'm having a problem to verify domain with https in webmaster tools. Does anybody know how to verify it? Thanks
SEO Learn Center | | odmsoft0 -
Tools to see how many times a domain has been bought and sold? Domain Owner History?
Hi Folks! I'm in the process of trying to buy a domain off someone who isn't really using it for much other than a single anding page for his defunct company. The current ower is putting a massively high price on the domain (five figures) which is WAY more than what any regular buyer would value it at. He claims he paid that price several years ago when he bought it. I don't believe him, and I feel he's just using that as an excuse to value his domain very highly. Does anyone know of any tools I could use to help me see how many times the domain has changed owners? I have a sneaking suspicion that he is the original owner, but I have no way to tell. It currently has privacy on it so I can't tell much by looking at whois.sc or using my subscription to whorush.com. Any one have any other ideas for me?
SEO Learn Center | | shawn810 -
Can some expert help us on switching domain name issues?
We have a small brick and mortar store chain in California. And we also have an online store with the same domain name. We are planning to invest on our online store platform and switch to Magento. while switching to Magento platform we are also considering to switch our domain name also. Our current domain name is not representing our current business model and capacity. Our brick and mortar store name is PuzzleZoo, our e-store domain is also PuzzleZoo. This domain is active in use for well over 10 years. But once started as a puzzle store, today we sell more toys than puzzles. We want to keep our brick and mortar store name as our brand. We also own ToyZoo domain name. And we are looking to use the new Magento store with ToyZoo domain. The question is should we keep both domains separately running or should we use only one. In this case should we stay with PuzzleZoo with only looks like a Puzzle store instead of a toy store. Or should we use ToyZoo and redirect the PuzzleZoo links to ToyZoo links? If we have both stores open with similar products, descriptions and images, are we going to get penalized by Google for duplicate content issues? Or PuzzleZoo being a brick and mortar store and ToyZoo being an online only store will help us to avoid getting Penalized by Google or other search engines? If we use Toyzoo are we going to lose our keyword authority and traffic? Looking forward to hear Expert opinions. Your participation will be highly appreciated.
SEO Learn Center | | PuzzleZoo0 -
Difference Between www.domain.com and www.domain.com/ ?
Hi, Of course, it is obvious that when other sites link to you, they choose how to do so in terms of the anchor text. My questions is: 1. Most of the domain names I see on the web are: www.domain.com/ however, I am pretty sure that when someone thinks you have a site that there members can benefit by they will link to: www.domain,com , am I coorect in stating that the search engines (SE) see these as two separate and distinct domains? 2. If so, are these too, then these must be different and distinct as well: www.domain.com/best-service vs. www.domain.com/best-service/ **I went on that assumption and have created 301 directs for the latter example. ** 3. How would one check to see if a 301 direct is in place? As always, I am appreciated to this site and member's skills. Jim
SEO Learn Center | | jimmy02250 -
Over $100 per click? How to keep competitors from clicking...
I was doing some investigating on high priced pay per click keywords. I had a client ask me if there is a way to prevent your competition from just repeat clicking your ads which in turn cost him money... Suggestions? Also, can you believe this: | Keyword | Search volume | Average CPC | Category |
SEO Learn Center | | JChronicle
| mesothelioma settlement | 1,900 ∼ | $142.67 ↑↑↑ | asbestos |
| mesothelioma asbestos attorney | 5,400 ∼ | $121.68 ↑ | asbestos |
| asbestos attorney | 9,900 ∼ | $117.23 ↓ | asbestos |
| asbestos law firms | 2,900 ∼ | $106.77 ↑ | asbestos |
| sell annuity payment | 1,900 ∼ | $95.16 ↑ | annuity |
| annuity settlements | 5,400 ∼ | $92.36 ↑ | annuity |
| structured annuity settlement | 6,600 ↑↑↑ | $92.36 ↑ | annuity |
| auto donation | 33,100 ∼ | $84.51 ↑ | donate |
| virtual data rooms | 4,400 ∼ | $79.59 ↑ | data |
| donating a used car | 2,900 ∼ | $79.35 ↑ | donate |
| auto accident attorney | 135,000 ∼ | $73.12 ↑ | auto |
| mesothelioma cancer | 9,900 ∼ | $71.30 ↑ | asbestos |
| data recovery RAID | 8,100 ∼ | $70.80 ↓ | data |
| motor insurance quotes | 301,000 ↓↓↓ | $67.09 ↑ | insurance |
| auto insurance discounters | 2,400 ∼ | $66.00 ↑↑ | insurance |
| auto accident lawyer | 135,000 ∼ | $64.54 ↑ | lawyer |
| RAID data recovery | 8,100 ∼ | $64.22 ↓ | data |
| asbestos cancer | 14,800 ∼ | $61.13 ↑ | cancer |0 -
Top Domain Authority Sites
Is there a list like the IR500, but for the top domain authority sites? If not, could you build one?
SEO Learn Center | | adam-1869630 -
What are the things I should tell my website developer to keep in mind for on-page SEO wise while outsourcing it?
I have done the keyword research for my target and will do the copy writing in-house suited for both visitors and bots.Like suitable headers and mention of keyword in the content,mention of keyword in link,having video in the page if possible etc. I need some help for a proper interlinking strategy and main question is, what are the things to be taken care of in coding/development SEO wise,which should be told to developer. I am going for custom development in .NET platform( if it matters anyway ) My site will have 3 products/services page and rest are resources and Q&A community. I am targeting the keywords for 3 products. Q&A community and resources should help me in long tail keywords. Any kind of advice,suggestion is welcome. Thanks
SEO Learn Center | | RyanSat0 -
Websites copying my content and spamming it on 15+ different domains- WHY?? More pop up as I try to take each one down- what do they gain from this?
I own http://TheCareerProject.org and in the last 3 months over 15 sites have popped up copying my content and Google is scanning it as my own. Why would a site do this? Is it a hacker campaign to take away rankings? What benefits do they get from this. EXAMPLE1 : http://germanbollati.com/heat-victor-hugo-juarez-puebla/, EXAMPLE 2: http://rsa-dev1.com/unbalanced-underwriting-outsourcing-india/ There are 15 more I have submitted to Google Webmaster to evaluate and I contact the site owners and majority do not respond. Why are they doing this and what can I do? Thank you - Alicia- info@thecareerproject.org
SEO Learn Center | | miller4280