Www.sitename.com or sitename.com?
-
A client of mine's site is currently sitename.com. www.sitename.com redirects to the non-www URL and the canonical is using the non-www URL. This is a fairly new site and there aren't many existing inbound links. Is there a benefit to switching this?
-
This isn't so much an SEO question as it is a branding and perception question. I think the prevailing wisdom is to ask yourself, "How tech savvy are my customers". If they're technophiles, go with the non-www version because its shorter, easier to tweet and print on cards, and is just more hip these days. If they're not so tech-savvy you'll want to go to the www version so that your customers see it and know they're looking at a web address.
Just my 0.02c
-
I'll chime in as a second to this answer.
Cornel is correct - it doesn't matter, just pick one.
Personally, I prefer the www. for style reasons, but Google doesn't care.
Cheers,
-
Hi Jon,
I don't know of any difference as long as you keep just one of them so you avoid the duplicate content.
To me it seams that people are more used with the www when they naturally want to link to your website.
Hope this helps
Cornel
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
-
Embedded twitter post is good for https://www.fitness-china.com/hip-thrust-machine seo
We have short video posts on twitter. Embedded twitter post is good for https://www.fitness-china.com/hip-thrust-machine SEO?
On-Page Optimization | | ahislop5740 -
When, if ever, would you need to use: example.com/en
Is there any reason to have /en on your website if your website is only in English? Or is it worth having in case you are preparing to translate into other languages? And is there any advantage to being: en.example.com over example.com/en Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | CosiCrawley0 -
Www and non-www
I have a site that has used both www and non-www urls since inception years ago. Moz is saying that I have 183 pages of duplicate content, and it is all because each internal link has both versions. Both versions have high PR and links going back to them...should I still 301 redirect to one of them or should I leave them be? Thanks Brad
On-Page Optimization | | bradleymiller1480 -
How Much Does a Missing www. 301 redirect hurt a business?
We're preparing a report for a potential client, and are trying to figure out a way to estimate rankings gains. One of the major issues is a lack of a 301 redirect for non-www. domains to www. domains. We checked and there's no canonicalization, so it's a clear issue. According to Google, the non-www. links from 8 different domains. The www. version of the website has links from 248 different domains. Nearly all anchor text is branded, as they've never had any SEO work done before. Does anyone have a suggestion for approximating benefits of setting up their .htaccess file correctly? Would the benefits even be that great? We're of course advising additional things, but we just want to be more certain about this step's SEO-boost.
On-Page Optimization | | FlynnZaiger0 -
Lost Page Rank after directing http:// to WWW?
Hi I am trying to redirect all the non www urls to WWW. After I redirected them, most of my category page PR are dropped to 0. Can someone please tell me if this is the normal after effect after the redirect? Example url: this is PR2 before the redirect http://www.ilovebodykits.com/category/95/Body_Kits_Front_Bumpers.html
On-Page Optimization | | ilovebodykits0 -
301 redirect www.brandname.com to www.brandname-keyword.com
It seems I've been reading about 301 for hours now, but I still didn't find an answer to my question, so I'm hoping someone can help me out here. I'm starting a new webshop which is relaunching a semi known brand within its specific niche, say kids toys. Now my question is - since the brand name is relatively known and it is only 5 letters short, the website will be www.xxxxx.com. However the brand name itself doesn't say anything about the products we sell, so I was thinking to buy www.xxxxx-toys.com and 301 redirect www.xxxxx.com to this new site, but still use the shorter version in all marketing material since it's a lot easier to type and remember. Apparently Google doesn't give extra juice to sites with keywords in the domain name anymore (?) but it would still say something about site to new customers unaware of the brand name. Any advice? 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | JaneVO0 -
How do you create a 301 redirect for www.mysite..com/index.html in htaccess.
I understand that it is possible to create a 301 redirect for www.mysite..com/index.html to www.mysite.com. (as well as subdirectories.) How is this accomplished? My hosting company says that setting this up in htaccess will cause "Apache to geti into an infinite loop and the page won’t load." I have read on the forum that this is possible. Any help would be greatly appreaciated. THanks. Perri
On-Page Optimization | | PerriCline0 -
What is the best practice for optimizing international websites? We operate a .co.uk and .com and obviously content is similar.
We have two (and soon to be more) international websites, all in English. The sites in question are WebHostingBuzz.com and WebHostingBuzz.co.uk. Obviously content is similar as we're providing a similar service but from different locations and different prices. What is best practice here? Should we completely re-write the .co.uk content (this is the newer site) so it isn't penalized for scraping? Any hints/tips would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | mdrussell0