WWW used in research URL, or not to WWW
-
Long time user, infrequent poster.... thanks for taking my question...
When I go to gather a series of data elements on a company's URL, the data changes (sometime dramatically) depending on whether the 'www.' is added to the URL & it seems related more to Page data than Domain.
My question is about which data I should be using to assess the real strength of the site / page? Is there a 'best practice' question here, a personal preference or is there an actual difference in the performance of the www vs the non-www version?
-
James,
Thanks. I do often find significant differences in the 'www' data vs. the 'non-www', but I also understand that the Google Juice can flow from one to the other - but I think it has to do with how the 'A' record is set.
What's the optimum here? How SHOULD an 'A' Record be set? Is there a difference if I want to maximize results in search? Should it be different if I want to maximize SEM?
Inquiring Minds Want to Know... (Rita Skeeter)
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
-
How are you using Moz Content?
Hey people, I just subscribed for Moz Content and I am wondering how are other professionals using it as a strategy tool. Today I just released a blog post talking about how larger content impacts PA. Not a big deal. I would appreciate some ideas and insights.
Moz Pro | | amirfariabr0 -
Need Help with www and non-www redirect
Hi everyone, I've been looking around the forum and found some similar topics but none of them have solved my problem. Anyway, I'm new to SEO and found that when I use Open Site Explorer for the www version of my site I see the links directed to my page, but none of my twitter stats show up. When I do the same for my non-www version. I see my twitter stats, but no links. Facebook seems unchanged. Also, the Page Authority is much higher for the www (I assume because of the links) It is my understanding that it doesn't matter which version of the domain is used, I just need to pick one and stick with it (on Google Webmaster Tools, etc.). And that I also need to do a 301 redirect for the version that I'm not using. The issue now is that I have a 301 redirect, and when I type in my url in any version (http, https, www, non-www) it all redirects in the browser without issue. So i know users are getting to the right page, but the Open Site Explorer still sees them as 2 different sites. My concern is that if Open Site Explorer sees it this way then Google may see it this way as well and I could be missing out on potential rankings. I'm currently doing the redirect in the .htaccess file. The redirect looks like this: RewriteEngine On
Moz Pro | | opstart
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L] Any Ideas on what I need to do to properly 301 redirect the site so that my preferred version can get credited with the links,twitter, and Page Authority stats? Also, I'm using wordpress and it has the URL set to the non-www version of the site. However, I think I would like to change this to the www version because most of the links are directing to www, and I also think people are more familiar with that format. Anyway, sorry for the long post. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.0 -
Exact Keyword is Used in Page Title & Exact Keyword Used in Document Text at Least Once
Hi Folks, I have a page https://purplegriffon.com/courses/itil-training/itil-foundation-training/itil-foundation that grades with the 'On-Page Grader' as a B grade for the keyword 'itil foundation' but reports that there is no 'Exact Keyword is Used in Page Title' and 'Exact Keyword Used in Document Text at Least Once'. The thing is, it actually is but because of IP (intellectual property) rights we have to include a '®' (®) symbol when we mention the course title 'ITIL® Foundation'. Now I believe Google is smart enough to recognise that this symbol should not be included but it seems that for the specific criteria mentioned above, the MOZ bot isn't smart enough to recognise this, even though it recognises the keyword usage elsewhere. So my question is this. Would this constitute an issue in terms of ranking? Another question I have, is how significant are the gains with shorter URL's? For example, the URL to the page in question is: https://purplegriffon.com/courses/itil-training/itil-foundation-training/itil-foundation Would a URL such as below have a significant effect on SEO?: https://purplegriffon.com/courses/itil-foundation Thanks for your feedback.
Moz Pro | | PurpleGriffon0 -
Identify business pain points using SEO
Hi, can I use SEO research techniques to identify what kind of services businesses are searching for? Is it possible to find out pain points? I have been using tool like MicroNicheFinder to do such a research but I am not getting any where. Is SEO only used to outrank my competition? Do I need to first know what business I need to be in and then use SEO techniques to research the demand? Do I make sense? You can tell that I am very new at the internet marketing thing. Please let me know. Thanks.
Moz Pro | | zsyed0 -
Why would my site return an error when using Open Site Explorer to crawl it?
I have built several new sites over the last few months for others, but recently built a new one for myself. I have gone through most of the checklists from this site to address on-page SEO, and now I am looking at link building. When using Open Site Explorer, I receive an error saying that no information about the URL is available, even when I add competitor sites. Wondering if this is a common issue and if there is a convenient remedy? thanks!
Moz Pro | | MindSpark0 -
How to use Crawl Report for a test directory
I have a client's new site set up in a folder that is not linked to from the main site. When setting up the Crawl Report, I put in the starting url for the new folder, http://oldsite.com/new/start.php. The Crawl Report came back with a crawl of the current site instead. How do folks run the crawl report to test sites before they are public? Thanks!
Moz Pro | | SWDDM0 -
Do I have to set up new SEOmoz campaigns after URL switch?
We switched hundreds of pages on our website from dynamic to static URLs (and optimized the static URLs for keywords), and did 301 redirects to the new URLs. Also submitted a new sitemap to Google. This was about a week ago. For my existing SEOmoz campaigns that have crawled since then, it looks like SEOmoz is still looking at all of the old dynamic URLs. Do I have to set up new campaigns with the same keywords in order to get SEOmoz to look at the new URLs, or will the SEOmoz crawlers figure it out over time? Or am I doing something wrong? Thanks for your help!
Moz Pro | | sally580 -
Dynamic URL pages in Crawl Diagnostics
The crawl diagnostic has found errors for pages that do not exist within the site. These pages do not appear in the SERPs and are seemingly dynamic URL pages. Most of the URLs that appear are formatted http://mysite.com/keyword,%20_keyword_,%20key_word_/ which appear as dynamic URLs for potential search phrases within the site. The other popular variety among these pages have a URL format of http://mysite.com/tag/keyword/filename.xml?sort=filter which are only generated by a filter utility on the site. These pages comprise about 90% of 401 errors, duplicate page content/title, overly-dynamic URL, missing meta decription tag, etc. Many of the same pages appear for multiple errors/warnings/notices categories. So, why are these pages being received into the crawl test? and how to I stop it to gauge for a better analysis of my site via SEOmoz?
Moz Pro | | Visually0