Www or no www
-
OK. Let's get the obvious out of the way. We all know to 301 www to root, or root to www. However, my questions for discussion is, which is better?
Is it better to redirect the root to www or redirect the www to the root? I ask this from the context of links. Because, even though my client's sites are being redirected in the .htaccess file, I note different PA, DA, and link counts for www vs no www. It appears to me it doesn't seem to matter in the social signal arena.
What I am thinking is that redirecting the root to www is better because humans naturally link with www, so you take advantage this natural aspect.
Agree or disagree? Are there any other considerations to worry about?
Thanks,
GuyP.S. My opinion is to call BS on link juice through 301s. It may help, but it is never as good as a link with no redirects.
-
Again, if you are working on an existing site, see what people are using to link to you already, and go with the one people are using more.
If it's a brand new site, go with whatever you feel is best, just be sure to be consistent and ensure that external sites are using your chose url structure.
-
It does matter. A link to www.yourdomain.com is different than a link to yourdomain.com.
If you're 301ing www to yourdomain.com, then the link may not be as valuable (as evidenced by the difference in PA). I know from a content perspective it doesn't matter. But from a link perspective is what I am trying to get opinions on.
-
had the same issue, we direct to www. syntactically, our content is part of the world wide web, so we figured that www. was the way to go. it won't really affect SEO one way or the other, but for a consistency standpoint (as Takeshi mentions), choose one or the other via .htaccess.
-
It doesn't really matter from an SEO perspective which one you choose, as long as you are consistent about it.
If you are working on an existing site, look to see which version of the URL people are linking to you with. If everybody is linking to the www version of your site, then go with that. As much as possible, make sure that people link to you with the canonical version of the url.
My personal preference is for www.
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
-
Www PA is 29\. Http version is PA of 21\. Should I start using the WWW one?
I think I know the answer but i need to ask anyway in case i am wrong. The www PA is 29. Http version is PA of 21. Should I start using the WWW one? A number of years ago, they hired an agency that built a ton of links to the WWW version. I should also point out that most of the site urls are for the http, so i would have to redirect all the other pages. Advice? Thanks, Nails
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | matt.nails0 -
Different content on pages with the same URL--except one is at www and the other at www2
Hi! I have two pages with unique content on each. However, they have virtually the same URL--except one is a www and the other is a www2. As far as I know, both pages were meant to gain organic traction. How should this situation be handled for SEO purposes? Thanks for any help! ---Ivey
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nichiha0 -
Robots.txt - Do I block Bots from crawling the non-www version if I use www.site.com ?
my site uses is set up at http://www.site.com I have my site redirected from non- www to the www in htacess file. My question is... what should my robots.txt file look like for the non-www site? Do you block robots from crawling the site like this? Or do you leave it blank? User-agent: * Disallow: / Sitemap: http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/sitemap.xml Sitemap: http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/video-sitemap.xml
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | morg454540 -
Domain Authority... http://www.domain.com/ vs. http://domain.com vs. http://domain.com/
Hey Guys, Looking at Page Authority for my Site and ranking them in Decending Order, I see these 3 http://www.domain.com/ | Authority 62 http://domain.com | Authority 52 http://domain.com/ | Authority 52 Since the first one listed has the highest Authority, should I be using a 301 redirects on the lower ranking variations (which I understand how works) or should I be using rel="canonical" (which I don't really understand how it works) Also, if this is a problem that I should address, should we see a significant boost if fixed? Thanks ahead of time for anyone who can help a lost sailor who doesn't know how to sail and probably shouldn't have left shore in the first place. Cheers ZP!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mr_Snack0 -
Www for main site and non www for integrated blog - is this a problem?
Hi Mozzers My client has their main site with www as the preferred version and utilises 301s for the non www version which is good. For their integrated WP blog, they prefer the non www version, again utilising 301s. So we have no duplicates, but is this different use of sub domains going to hurt SEO with regards to the links pointing in? ie do the links pointing into the blog benefit the main site or are we missing a trick and should change the blog to www? Many thanks Wendy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chammy0 -
How do i redirect www.domain.com/ to www.domain.com/index.php
I keep getting in my analytics www.domain.com/ and www.domain.com/index.php how do i make it consistently redirect to one version and not to both. I know about htaccess redirect and am already using this so am puzzle to which is the best one to use. below is the example .htaccess file im using. Options +FollowSymlinks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattmillen
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.co.uk [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.co.uk/index.php$1 [r=301,nc] which is better for SEO should i forward to www.domain.com/ or www.domain.com/index.php0 -
301 or 302 - www.yoursite.com/uk/content
If your website CMS forces you to redirect from the homepage should it be a 301 or 302 Example includes www.direct.gov.uk which 302's it My view is that it should be a 302 in this instance and almost all others should be a 301 - the reason for this is that you want the www.direct.gov.uk to be the "primary" and one that is displayed in Google, whereas for anything else you want the URL of the location. Yes I know that ideally you don't have any redirection at all...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AxonnMedia0 -
What on-page/site optimization techniques can I utilize to improve this site (http://www.paradisus.com/)?
I use a Search Engine Spider Simulator to analyze the homepage and I think my client is using black hat tactics such as cloaking. Am I right? Any recommendations on to improve the top navigation under Resorts pull down. Each of the 6 resorts listed are all part of the Paradisus brand, but each resort has their own sub domain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0