Switching site from non-www to www

[jameswesleyhunt]

Howdy folks,

I've got a website that is roughly 3 months old. I created it as a naked URL as I often prefer the look but I've noticed that a lot of my competition has www and also some of my clients seem to prefer it as well. I feel like switching it to www will be of long-term benefit for my site. The problem is that I currently have several pages with first page rankings and a backlinks. I am wondering what the negative effects of switching it to www would be, and how I can minimize any issues. I am guessing I should do a redirect, and I have access to some of the backlinks so I can change those as well, but is there anything else? Thoughts? I appreciate the feedback!

[MonicaOConnor]

In that case, you really don't need the 301 redirects. The canonical tags should have updated correctly when you made the change in your platform.

[jameswesleyhunt]

This is what I ended up doing. I changed the preferred version on the platform and also in Google. We will see what happens! Thank you...

[MonicaOConnor]

I think the better way to pass the authority is to set the canonical tags on the page to the www. version of your site. This passes the same amount of link juice and page rank as a 301 redirect. If you were changing the URL completely I would say a 301 redirect would be best practice, but I think the canonical tag is more appropriate here. Do you have the ability to set the preferred version of your URLs in your store settings on your platform?

[jameswesleyhunt]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the response. I will do that... I have already submitted the non-www as my preferred domain but will go back and switch to the www. Thanks!

[Dezzign]

Hi James, As long as you set up your 301 redirects properly everything should be fine, even without changing any of the backlinks. The amount of authority and link juice lost via the 301 should be minimal at best, especially when the redirect is on the same root domain.

In a situation like this it's good to set your preferred www URL in webmaster tools to make things nice and clear for Google. In webmaster tools get them to fetch the new www URL and submit it for indexing again. Ranking loss is usually minimal even when using a completely different domain name.

[Alick300]

Hi James,

Yes you can do it by using 301 redirect. I am quoting moz on this issue

"A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website."

So it would be best  idea to use 301 redirect in your case,  maximum link juice will pass you don't have to worry about ranking

Second thing I would like to suggest you choose preferred domain from webmaster tools by following steps

Log in to Google Webmaster Tools and follow these steps:

1. Click on your site on the Webmaster Tools home page.
2. Click on the gear icon and then click Site Settings.
3. Find the Preferred domain section and select the option you want.

Thanks