Root domain registered in search engines, inbound links to www sub-domain. A problem?
-
I just discovered that our site is registered with the major search engines without the "www" sub domain. Both domains resolve directly to our site, which I need to get corrected. I had planned to have the root (honestabe.com) forwarded to the sub (www.honestabe.com). However, I then found that the sub-domain is not listed with the search engines.
Of course, naturally almost all of our inbound links include www. Does Google differentiate between links with and without the sub-domain? In other words, if I forward the www address to the root, will I still get the SEO benefit of those inbound links using www?
I'm trying to figure out how to approach this. I'm hoping someone is going to make me feel really stupid for asking this and say it's no big deal. However, I have a feeling this could be a mess.
-
I just recently realized Google was indexing both www and non-www. I changed the settings in Google WM Tools and put in the 301 redirect to www. That was a couple weeks ago. Google is still showing non-www even though www has a higher PR. About how long will it take for Google to switch over to www, or is there something else I may need to correct?
Best,
Christopher -
Thank you for taking the time to write this up Blenny. I think this will also help with my duplicate page content issue. Most appreciated sir.
-
Great feedback. Thank you Gianluca!
-
Hey Josh,
Goog does differentiate the two in terms of applying link juice, but unless for some reason they deliver different content, it's not a major problem. My website has had this issue for awhile due to issues with our CMS system. There is an easy fix though. Try incorporating the rel canonical tag into your pages. Lots of great write-ups on SEOMoz and elsewhere on the usefulness of this tag - essentially tells Google which version of the url to credit the link juice and to keep in its index.
Then, as you said, I would change the internal link structure to reflect the "www" or "non-www" dependent on which one has the most links (Keep the one most people have linked to determined by a OpenSiteExplorer report from SEOMoz) so as to maintain consistency from that point forward. Ideally, you'd be able to 301 the less-linked version to the other since you lose a fraction of link juice with a 301.
Done correctly, you may actually gain engine authority since both non-www and www versions would "funnel" all of their link juice together.
Good luck!
-
no its not, you do lose a little from 301 redirect but very little
-
Doing a search with www.honestbabe.com Google revolves with this serps: http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=www.honestabe.com&pws=0&pbx=1&oq=www.honestabe.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1345l1345l0l1954l1l1l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=9441c9e3bb40875d&biw=1920&bih=955
As you can see from the sitelinks, Google has picked up some urls with www. and some without. This is surely caused by the fact that both versions are crawlable.
The best thing to do is to redirect 301 the root domain name to the subdomain www.honestbabe.com, if this is the version of the site that owns the highest % of backlinks
That way Google (and users) will be redirected always to the www. version and index just that one. Don't worry about the backlinks eventually existing and linking to the not www. site, because the link juice from those links will pass almost entirely to the www. linked page version.
Previously today I answered to a similar question: http://www.seomoz.org/q/duplicate-content-joomla
I suggest you to check it, also because there's the code you have to add to your .htacces file (if you are running on a apache linux enviroment).
-
Thanks for the quick reply Alan. The redirect to the root is what would work best in my situation, but I was concerned that I would loose the influence of inbound links to the www being redirected. I'm hoping this shouldn't be a concern?
-
I prefer the non www, as www is not nesasary, but that aside.
Yes they do differentiate
just 301 redirect one to the other, and you will be ok.
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
-
SPAMMY links to my search results page
Hi, I have a big problem, somehow someone has built THOUSANDS of SPAMMY links to my site's search result pages with keywords that does not even make sense or inline with the site. Links are dofollow and goes to /?s=TERM see the for yourself https://analytics.moz.com/pro/link-explorer/inbound-links?site=https%3A%2F%2Fhealthtian.com See image https://imgur.com/a/fahetyZ Please is there a way to BLOCK all at once? i feel these links are impacting on my site. Thanks
Link Building | | Lordcharsty1 -
Sponsored Blog Posts - Inbound links harm ranking?
Here There We have been contacting, a view online travel blogs lately if they are happy todo a sponsored blog post for us. Including a least one "dofollow" link within the post to our website. Our website: www.rapturecamps.com Blogs which have done a post about us: http://www.adventureinyou.com/10-best-surf-spots-in-bali/ http://thetravelhack.com/portugal/surfing-in-ericeira-portugal-with-rapturecamps/ Just wanted to double check with the Pro's here if that could harm our ranking? As i have a slight feeling it did actually, i cant proof it fully do. I hope i can get some answer here, these blogs are with good quality content, have a good PR and do allot of good blog posts. So i thought this should be only good for us.
Link Building | | 5Gates0 -
How to check inbound link quality?
We're reaching out to various communities to do some link building at the moment and were wondering what people did to confirm that the links are from quality sources? We don't want links from bad neighbourhoods or sites which have had penalties applied against them etc... What tools can we use to find this out? Thanks in advance for any replies!
Link Building | | agencycentral0 -
What are inbound links worth after Panda and Penguin, since a site ranks for the NATIONAL keyword "outdoor furniture" with ONLY 7 INBOUND LINKS!?!?
ARE INBOUND LINKS TODAY ALMOST WORTHLESS??!!? After having been the KING of SEO, down to the toilet? Today I got a great sample from a fellow SEO professional showing a site, rockymountainfurniture.com rank for "outdoor furniture" with ONLY 7 INBOUND LINKS FROM 3 DOMAINS and a domain trust of 14!!!! ON A NATIONAL, VALUABLE, HIGH QUERY VOLUME KEYWORD!! I was stunned, but is this the "NEW SEO WORLD" we live in, so we should skip spending hundreds of hours on link building? There are over 32 different types of inbound links but this is much MORE than a radical change, this is turning SEO as it was up-side-down. Any input, thoughts, ideas?
Link Building | | yvonneq0 -
If I create articles with my keyword phrases and find sites to post them on, will this help wiith my search engine rankings for keyword phrases?
Also, if I use my web site name for the anchor text on backlinks will it still help getting me ranked for my keyword phrases?
Link Building | | katiasm0 -
Recommended number of links on a single page to a different domain?
Hello fine SEOMOZ people, I have looked around and hope I have not missed an answer to this. The big picture: I know that when multiple links on a page point to the same external page, only the first link is considered for ranking purposes (at least for moz rank). What about multiple links on a page to (different) pages on the same external domain? The task: Using a client's network of sites to help build links (and advertise features) to the site they need optimised. The emphasis is on the usefulness of the info the the respective site's user but I am using the opportunity to create some meaningful anchor text links.The target site is feature rich and I could conceivavbly link to all the key site features (top level pages). However, my SEO spidey senses flagged the possibility that a few links on a page to the target domain (though to different pages on that domain), may carry more weight than many links on the page. I am talking about whether I can go ahead and put 10-15 links on a page to the key site features or whether I am (significantly) better off just selecting 2-5 key target feature pages and using other domains to link to the other features. Caveat: I think I am aware of all the peripheral concerns - not duplicating the page on other sites, varying the anchor text, not implementing the links all at once etc, etc.. Am I overthinking this?
Link Building | | LoweProfero-AU0 -
301 redirect and how linking domains are counted
I have a domain with several great links to it and I decided to change it to a new domain. I did a 301 redirect to the new domain. My question: Let's say youtube.com is linking to the old domain that is being redirected. Do I want to get a new link from youtube to the new domain as well, or is that pointless since there is already one to the old domain? Thanks,
Link Building | | DavidCurrier
Dave0