Links to www vs non-www
-
I was having speed issues when I ran a test under Google Page Speed test and, as a result, switched to using Google Page Speed Service. This meant I had to switch my site from the non-www to the www. Since the switch my page is running faster but my ranking has dropped.
What I'm trying to find out is the drop due to all of my previous links going to the non-www or is it because of the site being considered new and is more of a temporary issue. If it is a link issue I will contact everyone I can to see who will update the site address.
Thanks everyone!
-
Andy, JCurrier and Derek
Thanks so much for all of your help. Much appreciated!
-
Doesn't seem like anyone has mentioned it but, just in case, make sure you have your rel="canonical" tags published properly on every page. Here's a link for more if you need it:
-
If everything is in place Megan, then you should have no problems. Google will be able to work the links out without penalty. As JCurrier said, expect a little movement when you make changes, but it doesn't sound like anything much and should right itself. If it doesn't, then there may be something else going on as well.
-
Hi Megan,
As long as you have made all of the appropriate changes, you should be fine. The drop is probably due to the change, but you should see the rankings recover. I think you can expect some shuffling to occur when changes like these are made.
-
Hey Andy!
thanks for the response. I do have a redirect in place and have made all the appropriate changes in webmaster tools. Google recognizes the site on www but I saw a drop (5 spots) since the change.
Im wondering if Google treats www links and non-www as the same or different, or perhaps the drop is just a temporary one due to the "new" domain.
thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.
-
Hi Megan,
You shouldn't really have two live versions of your site. Apart from anything else, this causes duplication issues. What I would do is correct this by having someone create a redirect in the .htaccess file so that when anyone does hit the non-www version, they will automatically be forwarded to the www version.
That being said, you could always look at page caching to speed the load times up. Perhaps even look to have large images fed from an alternative source such as Flickr?
Andy
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
-
Links to my site still showing in Webmaster Tools from a non-existent site
We owned 2 sites, with the pages on Site A all linking over to similar pages on Site B. We wanted to remove the links from Site A to Site B, so we redirected all the links on Site A to the homepage on Site A, and took Site A down completely. Unfortunately we are still seeing the links from Site A coming through on Google Webmaster Tools for Site B. Does anybody know what else we can do to remove these links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pedstores0 -
Not sure if I should disavow these links or not
I am on the marketing team for CandyGalaxy.com we are an online candy store that specializes in bulk candy for events. Were just about a year and a half old and i'm running into some SEO strategy road blocks lately. When we started the company we used an oversee's seo company. For the first few months results were great then things took a massive dive as google began rolling out updates early and mid last year. After that point we started taking things in house and have been trying to create content and begin content marketing. We launched a blog @ blog.candygalaxy.com and also launched and educational resource at candybuffet101.com - However the question i'm up against now is what to do with those bad old links? Are they actually hurting us? Or just neutral? I'm also trying to decided what to do about the links in my footer? We put those there because those are truly our most popular products and we wanted customers to have easy access, but are those links potentially harmful? I'm questioning these issues because I feel like there is something holding back some of my pages from ranking. For example "blue candy" is a very popular section of our website. We have worked on a lot of content for the blog related to blue candy, made videos, photo shoots ect. We have customer reviews on page and unique category content. According to open site explorer our DA and PA are around the range of most of the sites in the 8-12 serp position. But we have more social activity then all but the top 2-3 spots. However the page almost impossible to find via search. Its not in the first 300 results and surely the page is more relevant then an entry about quilts.. Similar situations like this have led me to think that maybe there is a technical underlying issues that I have not addressed. ? The content is definitely there because if i type in a line from the content directly to google it is the first result. So the site seems indexed properly.. Would love to hear any feedback from similar experiences or ideas. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jonathan_Murrell0 -
Link Building for E-Commerce
Hi, Our on page optimization, albeit for a few dupe content issues, is ok - We have good keyword rich URL's, Titles, H1's and unique product descriptions. So now I want to look at building links that will boost our DA and PA's. We have over 2000 products on the store and around 130 categories/subcategories -and I would appreciate any views on where to start - My initial view is to get backlinks from the relevant manufacturer websites to the "shop by brand" page on our site related to these manufacturers - What other strategies should I look at? Thanks, Ben
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
De-indexed Link Directory
Howdy Guys, I'm currently working through our 4th reconsideration request and just have a couple of questions. Using Link Detox (www.linkresearchtools.com) new tool they have flagged up a 64 links that are Toxic and should be removed. After analysing them further alot / most of them are link directories that have now been de-indexed by Google. Do you think we should still ask for them to be removed or is this a pointless exercise as the links has already been removed because its been de-indexed. Would like your views on this guys.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
Content linking ?
If you have links on the left hand side of the website on the Navigation and content at the bottom of the page and link to the same page with different anchor text or the same would it help the page (as it is surrounded by similar text) or is the first one counted and this is it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Does having multiple links to the same page influence the Link juice this page is able to pass
Say you have a page and it has 4 outgoing links to the same internal page. In the original Pagerank algo if these links were links to an page outside your own domain, this would mean that the linkjuice this page is able to pass would be devided by 4. The thing is i'm not sure if this is also the case when the outgoing link, is linking to a page on your own domain. I would say that outgoing links (whatever the destination) will use some of your link juice, so it would be better to have 1 outgoing link instead of 4 to the same destination, the the destination will profit more form that link. What are you're thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TjeerdvZ0 -
Nofollow links in Google Webmaster
I've noticed nofollow links showing up in my Google Webmaster tools "links to your site" list. If they are nofollow why are they showing up here? Do nofollow links still count as a backlink and transfer PR and authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoCoGuru1 -
Dark Matter Links
From 2007 - 2004 I worked for Sprint in several positions with my last one being a Corporate Account Manager for fortune 1000 customers. In 2004 I left Sprint after the Nextel merger and created an eCommerce site called thesprintstore.net as a Sprint Nextel preferred partner. I used my inner working knowledge of Sprint to my wonderful advantage and began making 3x my original salary. My desire for more business turned to greed and I began leaking information that consumers loved i.e. phone release dates, price points, warehouse stock levels and tricks of the trade. This garnered me thousands of links from big sites (had no idea at the time) and eventually my site was issued a Cease and Desist order from Sprint's Corporate Headquarters. I recently realized one evening that I had a GEM of a domain with powerful backlinks that I could redirect to my current site TECHeGO.com [staff removed hyperlink]. (Some of the back links are from Engaget, Engaget Mobile, Rimmarkable and even one from Sprint.) The redirection has been in place for months now and I have confirmed that all that sweet Link Nectar is flowing through! I have found it interesting, however, that my back link and referral domain count have never increased leading me to believe that in doing a 301 Redirect existing links become what can only be described as 'Dark Matter Links' i.e. the links are there, simply invisible. Dark Matter Definition: dark matter is matter that is inferred to exist from gravitational effects on visible matter and background radiation, but is undetectable by emitted or scatteredelectromagnetic radiation. Dark Matter Links: dark matter links are visible links that have passed through a 301 redirect which are now inferred to exist but are no longer visible by crawlers? Is there a better definition that could be applied to the term 'Dark Matter Links'?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TECHeGO1