New website branding, differences between http://www and http://
-
Hey Mozers!
We will be creating another brand pretty soon with some pretty cool interactive features and before we start development of the site I was wondering if there are any pros/cons to branding the site sans the www.
For example http://example123.com and http://www.example123.com. I would much prefer to brand it has http://example123.com but I just wanted to check first to see if that would have any negative SEO ramifications.
It seems that it might just be a preference as I looked at Facebook and Twitter and they both do it differently, same with Groupon and LivingSocial.
Looking forward to hearing from you guys!
-
Given that we know there isn't any difference from an SEO perspective it comes down to purely external factors. Some questions to think about...
- Are people going to constantly link to the www version any way?
- In a competitive space is one more eye-catching than the other?
- What's more memorable to the visitor?
-
Yea that was a concern I had going in, but I was thinking about it and in general when people link to different products or areas of the site I would assume they might just go copy the link from the url bar (at least that is what I do).
I wonder if the % is really enough to matter when people link to http://zebraswithhats or http://www.zebraswithhats - no thankfully that is not the domain
-
Oof, massive failure on my part lol, there just so happens to be this "check, this answered by question!" Thanks for pointing it out for me
-
Actually a pretty neat feature of the Q&A forum is that you can mark answers as helpful (which highlights the post in green and gives the person a shiny 3 MozPoints).
There should be a text link saying something like 'This answered my question' with a tick at the bottom of their posts which you can click (at least I think that's how to mark them, I've not asked a question yet :D)
-
More people out there are linking to the www.name version and even if you do the 301 redirect you will still lose some vote %.
Since it's a new brand and you are starting this now you should take your time and consider every aspect from the start and make your call based on all facts.
I always vote for the www version but that, beside the linking and look factor of the url is a personal thing.
-
Definately what I was looking for guys, thank you for the awesomely quick responses! I figured that it wasn't that big of a concern for SEO but since we are starting from scratch I just want to make sure its correct from the start! Tossed you both thumbs up!
-
The only difference is from the user perspective. Search engines treat both versions the same.
What you want to be careful about is maintaining consistency within your site. This is especially true at larger organizations with multiple publishing points. If everyone isn't made aware (and reminded from time to time) of this branding decision, inconsistencies will begin to pop up.
Furthermore, you should be sure to redirect all versions of pages to the option you choose. This is true for both the home page and all other pages. For example, if you choose http://example123.com...
- http://www.example123.com should be 301 redirected to http://example123.com
- http://www.example123.com/whatever should also be 301 redirected to http://example123.com/example123
Finally, be sure to share your choice with all parties that communicate externally. This includes PR, Social Media, Marketing, etc. for inclusion in their posts, your company boilerplate, emails, etc.
-
No difference from an SEO perspective. After the Q&A last year at SMX Advanced with Matt Cutts, I went up and asked him this very question. He said make sure one version redirects to the other, and if it is an existing site, Google will likely display the version with more pagerank. If this site is still in development, when you release it, have all links go to the sans www versions and make sure the www versions 301 redirect to the sans www URL's.
From a branding perspective, it only matters if you plan on displaying the .com on the page or in the logo or something like that. If you plan to display the .com, then sans www. Looks cleaner and just better recognition overall.
If you aren't planning to display the .com anywhere, then it really doesn't matter as hardly anyone outside this industry pays attention to which version of a URL they are on.
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
-
Redirecting an Entire Website?
Is it best to redirect an old website to a new website page by page to like pages or just the entire site all at once to the home page of the new site? I do have about 10 good pages on the site that are worth directing to corresponding pages on the new site. Just trying to figure out what is going to preserve the most link juice. Thanks for the help!
Technical SEO | | photoseo10 -
Www to non www on a .com/blog url
hi guys, I have had to reset my site from www to non-www. via htacces and this worked out just fine.However, the /blog WordPress section will not redirect to the non-www. I have changed the config.php to non-www. However, the /blog WordPress section will not redirect to the non-www. I have changed the config.php to non-www. Does anyone have an idea as to what I need to do to force the non-www in a folder installed blog http://5starweddingdirectory.com/ http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com/blog/ Regards T
Technical SEO | | Taiger0 -
SEO for Parallax Website
Hi, Are there any implications of having a parallax website and the URL not changing as you scroll down the page? So basically the whole site is under the same URL? However, when you click on the menu the URL does change? Cheers
Technical SEO | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Mobile website question
Hi Mozzers, A website I manage has a mobile friendly version of their main website and a /m version as well. I was wondering if anyone had any experience in the best way of handling this? Should we just get rid of the /m version and tag the mobile friendly version? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | KarlBantleman0 -
No descripton on Google/Yahoo/Bing, updated robots.txt - what is the turnaround time or next step for visible results?
Hello, New to the MOZ community and thrilled to be learning alongside all of you! One of our clients' sites is currently showing a 'blocked' meta description due to an old robots.txt file (eg: A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt) We have updated the site's robots.txt to allow all bots. The meta tag has also been updated in WordPress (via the SEO Yoast plugin) See image here of Google listing and site URL: http://imgur.com/46wajJw I have also ensured that the most recent robots.txt has been submitted via Google Webmaster Tools. When can we expect these results to update? Is there a step I may have overlooked? Thank you,
Technical SEO | | adamhdrb
Adam 46wajJw0 -
Google not indexing my website
Hi guys, We have this website http://www.m-health-expo.nl/ but it is not indexed by google. In webmaster tools google says that it can not fetch the site due to the robots.txt but i do not see any faults in it. http://www.m-health-expo.nl/robots.txt Do you see something strange, it really bothers me.
Technical SEO | | RuudHeijnen0 -
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.
Technical SEO | | waqid0 -
What if my brand name is my keyword?
Referencing the new 'over optimization' penalties.. What if your company name was "Buy a Burrito" and your website website was buyaburrito.com (not a real site), and your main keyphrase was "buy a burrito". Will Google treat all Branded Terms as exact or phrase match keywords and penalize you?
Technical SEO | | daviddischler0