Www or not www base url
-
Here is the situation. Developer custom coded a magento commerce shop for a seo client and is having problems adding www to the URL without breaking the site. They wont be able to get this completed until a couple months down the road.
We are starting monthly SEO this June. Most directories and websites link to the www version of a site not the non www. What should I expect since we are ranking for the non-www and linking to the www version.
In web master tools i'm telling google to display the URL as www.
-
The 2 month wait is nonsense. I agree.
I appreciate everyones feedback. We are going to push for the www version, the non-www option is a no go,
Thanks : ]
-
"It doesn't sound like they are a developer at all if" no kidding! I'm not a developer, yet as a project manager even I knew it would be that straight forward...
-
It doesn't sound like they are a developer at all if they can't apply a basic rewrite which is included in the Magento core.
Switch URL rewriting on from the admin panel and add this in .htaccess
RewriteCond %{http_host} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,NC](replacing yourdomain.com with the domain).
May vary depending on the version of Magento although if its a new build, I would expect it to be 1.6 or 1.7.
-
I can't think of a reason why a properly coded Magneto site could not have www added to the urls in a very short manner of time. Like an hour or less..
If you're only on the SEO end of it, you probably already know piling on issues with linking to redirecting url's isn't the best use of your time. I think the decision has to be made by the client. You just need to make clear the anticipated results of each option. Ideally, you'd recommend to your client to fix the URL problem first, and let them know that a 2 month wait for a little fix like an .htaccess re-write is not standard for web developers.
-
ouch. If I understand what you just communicated, you've got a site that had previously worked with the www version, but now, due to technical changes, the www version doesn't function? And won't for a couple months?
That's a scary scenario and having worked with many different developers and systems administrators over many years, I've never allowed one to tell me "we can't fix that for a couple months" and get away with that claim.
It can either be addressed or it can't at the site level or the server level, one way or another. Regardless of development framework, you should be able to set the non-www to redirect to the www version at the server level and it should work right. If there's a massive bug in the Magento implementation, that sounds like a very serious flaw in the developer's skill set as far as I can tell.
So - IF you're stuck, you're going to have a major SEO problem for longer than a couple months.
By all rights the only solution in that scenario is to scrap the www version altogether and NOT revert back to it in a couple months. Change all the 301 redirect settings and within GWT to now point to the non www version. Then work to build up more links to the non www version over time.
Because that's the only short-term solution you can do now from a best practices approach if the failure can't be quickly addressed.
And down the road, if you do this, you'd have to once again reverse everything, just causing you more problems.
So either get a developer / IT specialist who can fix it immediately, or scrap the www version altogether.
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
-
Technical URL SEO question
Hi All, We sell a product on our site which is displayed in cubic metres, from an SEO perspective is it ok to have /3m³ in the URL or should I use 3m3. Thanks All
Technical SEO | | Redooo0 -
www vs non-www
We have 2 variations of domains. www and non-www
Technical SEO | | aaaannieee
Both can be seen by users and have been linked to on press releases, but only the www one has data on Google Search Console.
In the case, what is the best practice for us?0 -
URL Indexing with Keyword
Hi, My webpage url is indexed in Google but don't show when searching the Main Keyword. How can i index it with keyword. It should show on any SERP when the keyword is searched. Any suggestions.
Technical SEO | | green.h1 -
Changed URL of all web pages to a new updated one - Keywords still pick the old URL
A month ago we updated our website and with that we created new URLs for each page. Under "On-Page", the keywords we put to check ranking on are still giving information on the old urls of our websites. Slowly, some new URLs are popping up. I'm wondering if there's a way I can manually make the keywords feedback information from the new urls.
Technical SEO | | Champions0 -
Rel cannonical on all my URL's
Hi, sorry if this question has already been asked, but I can't seem to find the correct answer. In my crawling report for the domain: http://www.wellbo.de I get rel cannonical notices. I have redirected all pages of http://wellbo.de to http://www.wellbo.de with a 301 redirect. Where is my error? Why do I get these notices? I hope the image helps. Ep7Rw.jpg
Technical SEO | | wellbo0 -
Www vs non www and understanding opensite
Hi Guys, New guy here with some questions regarding the difference between www and non www. I am helping with a site at the moment and gradually working my way through bits and learning all the time. I was watching one of the seomoz videos and it brought my attention back to www vs non www. I understand that google will treat these as two seperate sites but wanted to check what the stats are telling me. I was under the impression that www.mydummysite.com was getting most links etc as this is what I have always used. However when I used Opensite explorer it told me something different as follows: www.mydummysite.com 32/100 29/100 5 16 mydummysite.com 32/100 29/100 2 1,500 Am i correct in saying that i should be adding a redirect from www.mydummysite.com to mydummysite.com ???? I am thinking that this is telling me that I am potentially missing out on 1,500 links to my site but it could mean I am missing out on just 16. Eitherway I guess its something I should fix right? Do I just redirect that page or would all pages beneith it such as mydummysite.com/news also need redirect??? Can i use Canonical Rel links for this now? Thanks for taking the time to read and reply! 🙂
Technical SEO | | wedmonds0 -
Page Titles where URL customization is limited
Hi all, I'm working for a new company which has several websites built on the Miva Merchant 5.5 platform. I'm new to SEO and trying to improve one specific category of products. With Miva the URL structure is set to: "category/" or "product/". I would have liked to have the ability to create URLs like "bike/beach-cruisers/mens-red-hawaiian.html". Since I cannot do that I'm trying to determine the best product name and page titles. Currently all of our titles have the word "bike". So when a category page is displayed, which shows over 100 products I get flagged in my campaign for over using the keyword "bike". However, if I take the work "bike" out of the page title I'm concerned that it would hurt us in the SERPs. Another factor that I'm getting flagged for on my campaign is the fact that our navigation uses the same key words repeatedly in each link. I'm not sure if it's really hurting us or not. Below is an example. I'm looking for some input on recommendations for product names and page titles. Below are some examples of what I'm working with. Any input or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Menu Sample: Bikes-Street-Blue-Mens Bikes-Street-Blue-Womens Bikes-Street-Blue-Kids Bikes-Street-Orange-Mens Bikes-Street-Orange-Womens Bikes-Street-Orange-Kids Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Blue-Mens Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Blue-Womens Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Blue-Kids Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Orange-Mens Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Orange-Womens Bikes-Beach-Cruiser-Orange-Kids Current Page Titles/Name: Mens Bike Street Blue | XYZ Bike Mfg. - product/mens-bike-street-blue.html Mens Bike Street Orange | XYZ Bike Mfg. - product/mens-bike-street-orange.html Womens Bike Street Blue | XYZ Bike Mfg. - product/womens-bike-street-blue.html Womens Bike Street Orange | XYZ Bike Mfg. - product/womens-bike-street-orange.html
Technical SEO | | Technical_Contact0