Should I include www in url, or doesn't it matter?
-
Hello Mozzers, I was just wondering whether Google prefers www or non www URLs? Or doesn't it matter? Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks for input everyone - much appreciated
-
Did you set up a canonical redirect? or did you prefer a www or non www version of your website. If you redirected to a www or non www then definitely use the one you picked with everything.
-
However, you DO want to be consistent and have either all www or no www, and have one redirect to the other, so you don't have both versions (www and non-www) indexed.
-
It really doesn't matter, but it is considered more commonplace to have the www at the front. No SEO benefits either way though.
-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
-
To include in Sitemap or not to include?
Hello all, A bit of a confusing one but please bear with me... On our website we have a Used Cars section where each morning a feed is loaded onto our site with any changes to the stock. Some cars may have been sold and removed, some new cars may be added, some prices may be changed, every day every morning this very large section of our website is updated. The question I have is, should I be including these urls in my sitemap? The Used Cars section is a huge portion of our website content and is our most important area, the Used Cars overview is our most frequently visited page. The reason I ask is because of course Google might crawl and see car X, but tomorrow car X could be gone and be replaced with car Y. Should I be even mentioning these pages to Google if by tomorrow some of those urls could be gone? It's always changing and it's something we don't have control of. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HB170 -
Switching Url
I started working with a Roofer/Contractor about a year ago. His website is http://www.lancasterparoofing.com/. The name of his business is Spicher Home Improvements. He used to have spicherhomeimprovements.com, well he still does. He was focusing on Roofing and Siding but now would like to branch to other areas like Interior remodeling. So adding interior work under LancasterPaRoofing.com is not applicable. I do not think starting another domain and having two is the best option. I think he should go back to using SpicherHomeImprovements.com and I assume he would take a small hit but in time he should be better off. Plus the url is more applicable to the real name of his business. Thanks for any feedback I receive. Chad
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChadEisenhart0 -
I have two sitemaps which partly duplicate - one is blocked by robots.txt but can't figure out why!
Hi, I've just found two sitemaps - one of them is .php and represents part of the site structure on the website. The second is a .txt file which lists every page on the website. The .txt file is blocked via robots exclusion protocol (which doesn't appear to be very logical as it's the only full sitemap). Any ideas why a developer might have done that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Expired urls
For a large jobs site, what would be the best way to handle job adverts that are no longer available? Ideas that I have include: Keep the url live with the original content and display current similar job vacancies below - this has the advantage of continually growing the number of indexed pages. 301 redirect old pages to parent categories - this has the advantage of concentrating any acquired link juice where it is most needed. Your thoughts much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cottamg0 -
No longer showing for 'money' phrases but long tail combinations rank high?
I hope someone can shed some light on this as I've been pulling my hair out so much there's hardly any left! Background: 12 year old website that for about 10 years had Top 3 rankings for 100's of phrases but rankings first dropped off August 2011. Panda seemed to be the cause but finding the exact issue is hard. We are an online travel agent and every hotel page has duplicate content copied from other websites. This has not been changed although lots of sections in the site still rank well, so do the hotel pages themselves. Lots of internal duplicate issues have been resolved but with no effect. Our old style link, link, link all day long with our 2-word main key phrase as anchor text has given us an unnatural backlink profile but no message has been left by G about this in WMT (yet). Internal link structure is poor with all pages linking back to the homepage with our 'money' 2-word phrase in 3 places. Penguin wiped two thirds of all our backlinks back in May 2012. Why then, do we still rank for our 'money' phrase on the homepage when it has some extra words included and becomes long tail? e.g. CityName Apartments (money phrase) - Now ranks page 2-3 CityName Apartments to rent for the night - Ranks #2 on Google in all countries To make things more confusing other pages rank really well for similar money phrase e.g. CityName Apartments Offers - Ranks 2nd on 185,000,000 results (not homepage) It seems only the homepage is effected (where 95% of inbound links point) but if the site wide duplicates or unnatural link profile was flagged it would effect more than one page of the site. Wouldn't it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lchoice0 -
Is it safe to redirect multiple URLs to a single URL?
Hi, I have an old Wordress website with about 300-400 original pages of content on it. All relating to my company's industry: travel in Africa. It's a legitimate site with travel stories, photos, advice etc. Nothing spammy about. No adverts on it. No affiliates. The site hasn't been updated for a couple of years and we no longer have a need for it. Many of the stories on it are quite out of date. The site has built up a modest Mozrank value over the last 5 years, and has a few hundreds organically achieved inbound links. Recently I set up a swanky new branded website on ExpressionEngine on a new domain. My intention is to: Shut down the old site Focus all attention on building up content on the new website Ask the people linking to the old site to my new site instead (I wonder how many will actually do so...) Where possible, setup a 301 redirect from pages on the old site to their closest match on the new site Setup a 301 redirect from the old site's home page to new site's homepage Sounds good, right? But there is one issue I need some advice on... The old site has about 100 pages that do not have a good match on the new site. These pages are outdated or inferior quality, so it doesn't really make sense to rewrite them and put them on the new site. I call these my "black sheep pages". So... for these "black sheep pages" should I (A) redirect the urls to the new site's homepage (B) redirect the urls the old site's home page (which in turn, redirects to the new site's homepage, or (C) not redirect the urls, and let them die a lonely 404 death? OPTION A: oldsite.com/page1.php -> newsite.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndreVanKets
oldsite.com/page2.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page3.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page4.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com/page5.php -> newsite.com
oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION B: oldsite.com/page1.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page2.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page3.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page4.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com/page5.php -> oldsite.com
oldsite.com -> newsite.com OPTION 😄 oldsite.com/page1.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page2.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page3.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page4.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com/page5.php : do not redirect, let page 404 and disappear forever
oldsite.com -> newsite.com My intuition tells me that Option A would pass the most "link juice" to my new site, but I am concerned that it could also be seen by Google as a spammy redirect technique. What would you do? Help 😐1 -
I'm facinated by SEO but the truth is, I don't have the time to do it. Who can I hire?
I'm facinated by SEO but the truth is, I don't have the time to do it. I trust the moz community more than some of those other SEO forums out there so I'm asking you all, where can I go to find a good SEO firm who's affordable enough for a small startup? The next part of the question is, what should I expect to pay for services that will really make a difference? Please don't spam this thread....I seriously just want an honest opinion as to where I can find some credible help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chaz880 -
Any ideas for capturing keywords that your client rejects because they aren't politically correct?
Here's the scenario: you need to capture a search phrase that is very widely used in common search, but the term is considered antiquated, overly vernacular, insensitive or outright offensive within the client's industry. In this case, searchers overwhelmingly look for "nursing homes," but the term has too many negative connotations to the client's customers, so they won't use it on-page. Some obvious thoughts are to build IBLs or write an op-ed/blog series about why the term is offensive. Any other ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jeremy_FP1
