Domain Structure - without www.
-
I'm working on a new project and we would prefer to not use the www. - for name/branding reasons. Are there any SEO ramifications from setting the domain without the www and using 301 redirects for all home page extensions to forward to -> domain.com(without the www)?
Furthermore, we will be hosting many profiles on this site and would like to structure them for optimal SEO. Would there be an issue with using sub domains - user.domain.com, or would sub directories be more optimal?
Thank you in advance!
-
1. It sounds like the site already has the www right now. You don't really need to change it, but since you want to, then go ahead and forward it. I have never experienced any bad coming from this personally. I does take a while to get ALL the urls that are indexed to show the right one but aside from that, none really.
2. Is it going to be an easily spammable, unmoderated platform? Then I'd go with user.domain.com.
But in most cases, use the /folder.
-
If this is truly a "NEW" project and you are setting it up from scratch, go ahead and proceed without the www. This will not effect your project in any way unless of course there ARE existing links coming into the www version. If so, you may lose that as KempRugeLawGroup stated. Otherwise you should be just fine.
For the subdomain vs subfolder, IMO, the best approach would be to go with the subfolder keeping it all within the one domain like Rand mentioned.
Best of luck!
-
As far as the question of subdomain vs subfolder, Matt Cutts said to do whichever is easiest: http://youtu.be/_MswMYk05tk
However, there was a question about that topic here on Moz a few months ago, and Rand Fishkin "strongly urged" a single subdomain (which is also my own preference): http://moz.com/community/q/moz-s-official-stance-on-subdomain-vs-subfolder-does-it-need-updating
And for www vs not, you will have to 301 it one way or the other and there is generally very little link juice lost with a 301 so if no www is better for your brand, I would go for it.
-
For the first question, the answer is...possibly. It all depends on how other people link to your site. If they link to it via www.yoursite.com, then the redirect will lose you some link juice. If they link to you via yoursite.com, then no. However, considering moz, doesn't use the www, I have to think it's really not that big of a deal.
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
-
Trash Domain Or Redirect it (unmaintained)
We have an old website with an old domain that has not been maintained for a few years; it now has a DA of 14 and a spam score of 24%. Our current domain (same business) within a few years has a domain authority of 21 and page authority 29 spam score 1%. (Yes, this domain should have been redirected from the get-go) The question is what do you do with it now? Toss it. Or redirect it. That domain has existed for years but still not sure what its value is from an SEO perspective. I would love to hear your feedback. Is there any benefit to redirect the old domain to the current domain. Or is it a negative and what impact?
Technical SEO | | MyBambooSEO0 -
Folders in url structure?
Hello, Revamping an out-of-date website and am wondering if I need to include the folders (categories) in the url structure? The proposed structure has 8 main folders. I've been reading that Google is ok if the folder is not included in the url, but is it really? The hesitation I have is that the urls are getting long and the main folder only has only a sub folder beneath it. So, /folder-name/facility-name/treatment-overview. This looks too long, doesn't it? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | lfrazer1230 -
Domain Registrar
Looking for opinions on some good domain registrars since I have decided to transfer from Godaddy. A question while I'm here discussing the topic. Does the reputation of a Domain Registrar affect SEO in any form?
Technical SEO | | greenfoxone0 -
Redirect non www. domain to WWW. domain for established website?
Hey guys, The website in question has been online for more than 5 years but there are still 2 versions of the website. Both versions are indexed by Google and of course, this will result in duplicate content. Is it necessary to redirect the non-www domain to the www. domain. What are the cons and advantages? Will the www. links replace the non-www links when it comes to keyword rankings? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | BruLee0 -
Should we 301 redirect our old domain to the new domain
We have a product that when started was under the domain appnowgo.com. We've since changed the name and the domain is now knackhq.com. The latter domain doesn't rank nearly as well as the former for many of the keywords we are targeting. For example... "online database builder" and "web app builder" are two of those keywords. Obviously having app in the domain is not a bad thing but it is our old name. The question is, should we 301 the appnowgo.com domain to knackhq.com? Or should we use that better rank and just link users to knackhq.com from the appnowgo.com site until we can increase our ranking for knackhq.com? We don't plan to update the content on appnowgo.com anymore and we obviously don't want to drop off rank if at all possible. Thanks! Eric
Technical SEO | | sitestrux0 -
301 for old domain to new domain - Joomla plugin or cpanel?
A client changed domains and both are being indexed. There are thousands of content pages. I can install a 301 redirect Joomla plugin and configure it so that each page redirects to the new domain. I have a feeling I will need to manual set every page. OR I can create a domain level redirect setting in cpanel using wildcards. I think this will automatically pass every old URL to the new URL. Which is the better approach? The cpanel option sounds like less work.
Technical SEO | | designquotes0 -
Redirect Multiple Domains
This is a follow-up question from one posted earlier this month. I can't linked to that because it's a private question so I'm trying to summarize it below. We have a number of domains – about 20 - (e.g. www.propertysharp.com) that point to our main domain ip adress (www.propertyshark.com) and share the same content. This is no black-hat strategy whatsoever, the domains were acquired several years ago in order to help people who mistyped the websites url to reach their desired destination. The question was whether to redirect them to our main domain or not. Pros were the reportedly millions of incoming links from these domains - cons was the fact that lots of issues regarding duplicate content could arise and we actually saw lots of some pages from these domains ranking in the search engines. We were recommended to redirect them, but to take it gradually. I have a simple question - what does gradually mean - one domain per week, per month?
Technical SEO | | propertyshark0 -
Search optimal Tab structure?
Good day, We are in the process of starting a website redesign/development. We will likely be employing a tabbing structure on our home page and would like to be able to capitalize on the keyword content found across the various tabs. The tab structure will be similar to how this site achieves tabs: http://ugmo.com/ I've uploaded a screen grab of this page as the Googlebot user agent. The text "Soil Intelligence for professional Turf Managers" clicks through to this page: http://ugmo.com/?quicktabs_1=1#quicktabs-1 So I'm thinking there could be some keyword dilution there. That said Google is very much aware of the text on the quicktabs-1 page being related to the home page content: http://www.google.com/search?q=Up+your+game+with+precise+soil+moisture%2C+salinity+and+temperature+measurements.+And+in+the+process%2C+save+water%2C+resources%2C+money.+inurl%3Augmo.com&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe= Is this the best search optimal way to add keyword density on a home page with a tab structure? Or is there a better means of achieving this? {61bfcca1-5f32-435e-a311-7ef4f9b592dd}_tabs_as_Googlebot.png
Technical SEO | | Hershel.Miller0