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    4. Www2 vs www problem

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    Www2 vs www problem

    Technical SEO
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    • TihomirPetrov
      TihomirPetrov last edited by

      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!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • JaneCopland
        JaneCopland @TihomirPetrov last edited by

        Good luck! 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • TihomirPetrov
          TihomirPetrov @JaneCopland last edited by

          Hey,

          the non-www version redirect to the old version - I know, pretty poor. But this is a situation I inherited 🙂 So, I will try to do something because now all the link juice is going to the old version and dilutes because of the redirects.

          Thanks for the help guys.

          Especially you, Jane 🙂

          JaneCopland 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • JaneCopland
            JaneCopland @TihomirPetrov last edited by

            Hi,

            I doubt you will see too many SEO detriments to this, but that depends on how the site is configured re: the non-www version of the site. If you access http://domain.dk/, what happens? Are you redirected to www.domain.dk, www2.domain.dk, or does one of the two categories' content load on the non-www URL?

            Google should simply treat www and www2 as different subdomains. I have not heard of ranking / indexing confusion based on using www1, www2 etc. but it's definitely the usability issue that would really bother me. Definitely good to work on convincing the client to hurry up with the complete redesign so you can get it all back on the www 🙂

            TihomirPetrov 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • TihomirPetrov
              TihomirPetrov @JaneCopland last edited by

              Hi Jane,

              I don't think that's possible. The client is a bit conservative in terms of changing the domain URLs. I think we just need to hurry up convincing them to finish the last section redesign. I was just wondering what the consequences now would be because of this www2. - referring consequences for the categories on it.

              JaneCopland 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • JaneCopland
                JaneCopland @TihomirPetrov last edited by

                Hi Tihomir,

                Is there a way you can rename the subdomains? E.g., name the old design / category something like http://categoryname.domain.dk/ and have the new content on http://www.domain.dk/?

                TihomirPetrov 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • TihomirPetrov
                  TihomirPetrov @JaneCopland last edited by

                  Hi Jane,

                  Thanks for the comment.

                  The point is that the company, that possesses the website, want for now to leave the old design for this category and move the other two on a new design (which resides in www2). The new categories are on www2 and their tabs from www redirect.

                  JaneCopland 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • JaneCopland
                    JaneCopland @TihomirPetrov last edited by

                    Hi Tihomir,

                    Are you planning to give the remaining category a facelift too?

                    It would be best to include all three categories under the same subdomain (e.g. the "www." subdomain) and place them in folders, e.g. www.domain.dk/category1, www.domain.dk/category2 and www.domain.dk/category3. www2 isn't technically damaging but it's bad from a usability point of view. It's incredibly unlikely to be remembered, for one, and even more likely to be mistyped as www.

                    TihomirPetrov 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • TihomirPetrov
                      TihomirPetrov @Bonx last edited by

                      Thanks a lot Rickus,

                      I answered together with Alex's answer 😉

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • TihomirPetrov
                        TihomirPetrov @Alex-Harford last edited by

                        Thanks for the response Alex and Rickus,

                        The point is that the website have three main categories. Two of them had been facelifted and moved to www2.domain.dk. Their tabs on www.domain.dk redirect to www2. The point is that on the www.domain.dk left the first category which is still not redesigned.
                        So, we basically can't remove any of these 3 categories - we end up with one category on the www & non-www version and with two categories on the www2 version.

                        😞

                        JaneCopland 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Alex-Harford
                          Alex-Harford last edited by

                          Do you still need the old domain? If not you should make the new website reside at www. or non-www.

                          Imagine telling people your URL "it's at www2.example.com" - most people don't know anything other than www. so it could cause confusion.

                          Also, if you have the same content residing at the www. and non-www. versions of your website, the two versions will be conisdered duplicate content so you should make sure only one exists.

                          TihomirPetrov 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Bonx
                            Bonx last edited by

                            Hi there Tihomir,

                            Although the www to www2 differs the .domain.com will still be the same, this will be seen as a duplicate domain in a way by Google or any other search engine. And will definitely damage ranking of your site.

                            So the best thing to do here is to remove the old site completely or just edit it so that google cant crawl the site if it is a necessity to have the old one live.

                            Hope this helps

                            TihomirPetrov 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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