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. Www2 vs www problem

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.

Www2 vs www problem

Technical SEO
4
12
3.4k
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.
  • TihomirPetrov
    TihomirPetrov last edited by Apr 24, 2014, 4:33 AM

    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 Apr 25, 2014, 7:35 AM Apr 25, 2014, 7:35 AM

      Good luck! 🙂

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • TihomirPetrov
        TihomirPetrov @JaneCopland last edited by Apr 25, 2014, 7:34 AM Apr 25, 2014, 7:34 AM

        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 Apr 25, 2014, 7:35 AM Reply Quote 0
        • JaneCopland
          JaneCopland @TihomirPetrov last edited by Apr 25, 2014, 7:29 AM Apr 25, 2014, 7:29 AM

          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 Apr 25, 2014, 7:34 AM Reply Quote 0
          • TihomirPetrov
            TihomirPetrov @JaneCopland last edited by Apr 25, 2014, 7:22 AM Apr 25, 2014, 7:22 AM

            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 Apr 25, 2014, 7:29 AM Reply Quote 0
            • JaneCopland
              JaneCopland @TihomirPetrov last edited by Apr 25, 2014, 7:18 AM Apr 25, 2014, 7:18 AM

              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 Apr 25, 2014, 7:22 AM Reply Quote 0
              • TihomirPetrov
                TihomirPetrov @JaneCopland last edited by Apr 25, 2014, 2:32 AM Apr 25, 2014, 2:32 AM

                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 Apr 25, 2014, 7:18 AM Reply Quote 0
                • JaneCopland
                  JaneCopland @TihomirPetrov last edited by Apr 24, 2014, 12:20 PM Apr 24, 2014, 12:20 PM

                  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 Apr 25, 2014, 2:32 AM Reply Quote 1
                  • TihomirPetrov
                    TihomirPetrov @Bonx last edited by Apr 24, 2014, 6:01 AM Apr 24, 2014, 6:01 AM

                    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 Apr 24, 2014, 6:01 AM Apr 24, 2014, 6:01 AM

                      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 Apr 24, 2014, 12:20 PM Reply Quote 0
                      • Alex-Harford
                        Alex-Harford last edited by Apr 24, 2014, 5:42 AM Apr 24, 2014, 5:42 AM

                        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 Apr 24, 2014, 6:01 AM Reply Quote 0
                        • Bonx
                          Bonx last edited by Apr 24, 2014, 5:29 AM Apr 24, 2014, 5:29 AM

                          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 Apr 24, 2014, 6:01 AM Reply Quote 2
                          • 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

                          • meditationbunny

                            Solved Should I consolidate my "www" and "non-www" pages?

                            My page rank for www and non-www is the same. In one keyword instance, my www version performs SO much better. Wanting to consolidate to one or the other. My question is as to whether all these issues would ultimately resolve to my chosen consolidated domain (i.e. www or non-www) regardless of which one I choose. OR, would it be smart to choose the one where I am already ranking high for this significant keyword phrase? Thank you in advance for your help.

                            Technical SEO | Jun 30, 2022, 6:27 PM | meditationbunny
                            0
                          • znotes

                            Personalized Content Vs. Cloaking

                            Hi Moz Community, I have a question about personalization of content, can we serve personalized content without being penalized for serving different content to robots vs. users? If content starts in the same initial state for all users, including crawlers, is it safe to assume there should be no impact on SEO because personalization will not happen for anyone until there is some interaction? Thanks,

                            Technical SEO | Apr 28, 2018, 7:30 PM | znotes
                            0
                          • I.AM.Strategist

                            Best Practice for www and non www

                            How is the best way to handle all the different variations of a website in terms of www | non www | http | https? In Google Search Console, I have all 4 versions and I have selected a preference. In Open Site Explorer I can see that the www and non www versions are treated differently with one group of links pointing to each version of the same page. This gives a different PA score. eg. http://mydomain.com DA 25 PA 35 http://www.mydomain.com DA 19 PA 21 Each version of the home page having it's only set of links and scores. Should I try and "consolidate" all the scores into one page? Should I set up redirects to my preferred version of the website? Thanks in advance

                            Technical SEO | Jun 26, 2019, 6:16 PM | I.AM.Strategist
                            0
                          • Michael4g

                            Duplicate Content Issue WWW and Non WWW

                            One of my sites got hit with duplicate content a while ago because Google seemed to be considering hhtp, https, www, and non ww versions of the site all different sites. We thought we fixed it, but for some reason https://www and just https:// are giving us duplicate content again. I can't seem to figure out why it keeps doing this. The url is https://bandsonabudget.com if any of you want to see if you can figure out why I am still having this issue.

                            Technical SEO | Feb 5, 2015, 7:50 PM | Michael4g
                            1
                          • 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
                          • 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
                          • raywatson

                            Syndication: Link back vs. Rel Canonical

                            For content syndication, let's say I have the choice of (1) a link back or (2) a cross domain rel canonical to the original page, which one would you choose and why? (I'm trying to pick the best option to save dev time!) I'm also curious to know what would be the difference in SERPs between the link back & the canonical solution for the original publisher and for sydication partners? (I would prefer not having the syndication partners disappeared entirely from SERPs, I just want to make sure I'm first!) A side question: What's the difference in real life between the Google source attribution tag & the cross domain rel canonical tag? Thanks! PS: Don't know if it helps but note that we can syndicate 1 article to multiple syndication partners (It would't be impossible to see 1 article syndicated to 50 partners)

                            Technical SEO | May 6, 2011, 3:55 PM | raywatson
                            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.