undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Www vs non-www which is better?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Www vs non-www which is better?

Technical SEO
8
12
34.5k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • bronxpad
    bronxpad last edited by May 16, 2012, 8:50 PM

    Is it better to have all your pages point to the www version or non www version.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • ReviveMedia
      ReviveMedia @bronxpad last edited by Nov 24, 2015, 12:26 PM Nov 24, 2015, 12:26 PM

      I am needing help with this same thing. Did you ever find a solution to redirecting with yahoo web hosting? TIA

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,11 months
      • SeoMartin1
        SeoMartin1 last edited by Jan 8, 2015, 1:21 AM Jan 8, 2015, 1:21 AM

        Joel, i prefer www version cause i think from a technical perspective, there are several benefits to including the WWW.

        • Ability to restrict cookies when using multiple subdomains. Cookies of a main domain (i.e. example.com) are sent to all subdomains: If you are going to have subdomains for other purposes (blog for instance), you may want to differentiate the sites and have a www prefix for the regular site.
        • WWW actually MEANS something. As mentioned above, WWW is a hostname, and the hostname names the specific service being used a computer network; WWW names the web service for a domain.
        • Using the WWW hostname allows for easy segregation in the file structure of your website. Everything in the “www” folder (and at the www.example.com domain) is directly related to serving the site to the public. This allows for simple root-level site organization, eg you could also have a dev folder and have a subdomain dev.example.com for your development site, etc.
        • More flexibility with DNS. Your domain’s “Zone” file controls where traffic to your domain is directed and using the non-WWW version of your domain can complicate things.

        you may still want to use the WWW simply because it’s conventional to do so. On a business card, the WWW clearly conveys, This is our address on the World Wide Web. People are used to looking for, and seeing, the WWW and that’s sufficient reason for many to stick to the convention 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • topic:timeago_earlier,3 years
        • Seattle
          Seattle @bronxpad last edited by May 17, 2012, 3:22 PM May 17, 2012, 3:22 PM

          Personally, I'd dump yahoo hosting and have my stuff hosted elsewhere. For less than $40/mo you can get hosting and have access to edit the .htaccess file to your heart's content.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • bronxpad
            bronxpad @Seattle last edited by May 17, 2012, 2:51 PM May 17, 2012, 2:51 PM

            I spoke with Yahoo, apparently they only offer the 301 redirect for the higher cost hosting plans that run about $40. Any ideas?

            Seattle 1 Reply Last reply May 17, 2012, 3:22 PM Reply Quote 1
            • Seattle
              Seattle last edited by May 17, 2012, 2:36 PM May 17, 2012, 2:36 PM

              http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/store/manage/sitesettings/sitesettings-29.html

              bronxpad 1 Reply Last reply May 17, 2012, 2:51 PM Reply Quote 0
              • bronxpad
                bronxpad last edited by May 17, 2012, 9:25 AM May 17, 2012, 9:25 AM

                Ok, does anyone know how to do a proper 301 redirect in yahoo web hosting?

                ReviveMedia 1 Reply Last reply Nov 24, 2015, 12:26 PM Reply Quote 0
                • Metropolis
                  Metropolis last edited by May 17, 2012, 6:37 AM May 17, 2012, 6:37 AM

                  As long as your consistent, but it just comes down to which have the higest ranksing if on an existing site.

                  I tend to prefer non-www for new sites as its less typing and un-necessary.

                  There is a moment for non-www http://no-www.org/

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • MalcolmGibb
                    MalcolmGibb last edited by May 17, 2012, 5:19 AM May 17, 2012, 5:19 AM

                    There is no better method they do not affect rankings, it is purely personal preference. However you must implement proper redirect rules to resolve http://mysite.com to http://www.mysite.com or vice versa which ever one you choose.

                    I tend to always go for www. as it just looks better to me.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • wrttnwrd
                      wrttnwrd last edited by May 17, 2012, 1:01 AM May 17, 2012, 1:01 AM

                      I prefer www, because folks will generally tend to use that version when they link to you. It's reflex.

                      But you can check this. Run Open Site Explorer for both versions of your domain.

                      If more people link to you using 'www' than non-www, use www and 301 redirect the non-www to www.

                      If more people use non-www, do the reverse.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • kwoolf
                        kwoolf last edited by May 17, 2012, 12:31 AM May 17, 2012, 12:31 AM

                        If you do choose to keep the www, make sure you have redirects in place so when a user doesn't enter the www, he or she will get to your home page. Just FYI, www.domain.com is a subdomain of domain.com, so if your site can be access through both, search engines view these as two different pages and possibly split rankings.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • Seattle
                          Seattle last edited by May 16, 2012, 9:27 PM May 16, 2012, 9:27 PM

                          Neither one is better, but whichever one you choose, make sure you remain consistent for your entire site.

                          As for me, I use the www because that's what google uses.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • 1 / 1
                          1 out of 12
                          • First post
                            1/12
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          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.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • WSteven

                            Flat vs Hierarchical URL Structure

                            Hi, We are redoing our site structure and I was wondering what are the benefits of having a flat url structure. For example store.com/product instead of doing store.com/category/product. I noticed sites doing it both ways, even moz.com has both structures ex: moz.com/learn/seo and when you clck on something it brings you to moz.com/seo-expert-quiz (even though following the previous logic it should be moz.com/learn/seo/seo-expert-quiz) Please advise, Thanks!

                            Technical SEO | Sep 9, 2014, 1:53 PM | WSteven
                            0
                          • TihomirPetrov

                            Www2 vs www problem

                            Hi, I have a website that has an old version and a new version. The content is not duplicate on the different versions.
                            The point is that the old version uses www. and non-www before the domain and the new one uses www2. My questions is: Is that a problem and what should be done? Thank you in advance!

                            Technical SEO | Apr 25, 2014, 7:35 AM | TihomirPetrov
                            0
                          • danny.wood

                            403s vs 404s

                            Hey all, Recently launched a new site on S3, and old pages that I haven't been able to redirect yet are showing up as 403s instead of 404s. Is a 403 worse than a 404? They're both just basically dead-ends, right? (I have read the status code guides, yes.)

                            Technical SEO | Oct 17, 2013, 5:15 PM | danny.wood
                            1
                          • socialengaged

                            Meta Description VS Rich Snippets

                            Hello everyone, I have one question: there is a way to tell Google to take the meta description for the search results instead of the rich snippets? I already read some posts here in moz, but no answer was found. In the post was said that if you have keywords in the meta google may take this information instead, but it's not like this as i have keywords in the meta tags. The fact is that, in this way, the descriptions are not compelling at all, as they were intended to be. If it's not worth for ranking, so why google does not allow at least to have it's own website descriptions in their search results? I undestand that spam issues may be an answer, but in this way it penalizes also not spammy websites that may convert more if with a much more compelling description than the snippets. What do you think? and there is any way to fix this problem? Thanks!
                            Eugenio

                            Technical SEO | Aug 30, 2013, 10:41 PM | socialengaged
                            0
                          • EileenCleary

                            Div tags vs. Tables

                            Is there any reason NOT to code in tables (other than it being outdated) for SEO reasons?

                            Technical SEO | Jun 10, 2013, 5:12 PM | EileenCleary
                            0
                          • Prospector-Plastics

                            Subdomain vs Main Domain Penalties

                            We have a client who's main root.com domain is currently penalized by Google, but the subdomain.root.com is appearing very well. We're stumped - any ideas why?

                            Technical SEO | Mar 28, 2013, 12:46 PM | Prospector-Plastics
                            0
                          • nyc-seo

                            Root directory vs. subdirectories

                            Hello. How much more important does Google consider pages in the root directory relative to pages in a subdirectory? Is it best to keep the most important pages of a site in the root directory? Thanks!

                            Technical SEO | Mar 5, 2013, 4:12 AM | nyc-seo
                            0
                          • Justin1

                            Redirection plugin: wordpress vs apache module?

                            Hi, Any one familiar with the wordpress plugin 'redirection' Are there any SEO benefits of having the plugin write the 301 redirects into the .htaccess? The standard mode does not use .htaccess but has wordpress genertae the 301s Thanks

                            Technical SEO | Dec 20, 2012, 4:29 PM | Justin1
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • Local Citation Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.