Need Help with www and non-www redirect
-
Hi everyone,
I've been looking around the forum and found some similar topics but none of them have solved my problem.
Anyway, I'm new to SEO and found that when I use Open Site Explorer for the www version of my site I see the links directed to my page, but none of my twitter stats show up. When I do the same for my non-www version. I see my twitter stats, but no links. Facebook seems unchanged. Also, the Page Authority is much higher for the www (I assume because of the links)
It is my understanding that it doesn't matter which version of the domain is used, I just need to pick one and stick with it (on Google Webmaster Tools, etc.). And that I also need to do a 301 redirect for the version that I'm not using.
The issue now is that I have a 301 redirect, and when I type in my url in any version (http, https, www, non-www) it all redirects in the browser without issue. So i know users are getting to the right page, but the Open Site Explorer still sees them as 2 different sites. My concern is that if Open Site Explorer sees it this way then Google may see it this way as well and I could be missing out on potential rankings.
I'm currently doing the redirect in the .htaccess file. The redirect looks like this:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]Any Ideas on what I need to do to properly 301 redirect the site so that my preferred version can get credited with the links,twitter, and Page Authority stats?
Also, I'm using wordpress and it has the URL set to the non-www version of the site. However, I think I would like to change this to the www version because most of the links are directing to www, and I also think people are more familiar with that format.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
-
Thanks everyone this was very helpful. I think I have it straightened out now. I've set my preferred domain in Google Search Console, and have changed many of the links to match this domain as well. Thanks again.
-
To Peter's point, I wouldn't worry too much about Twitter share counts since those are going away anyway. You mention what OSE says about links to the two versions of your sites, but what does Google Search Console say? Is it recognizing inbound links to your site?
If your URLs are redirecting to their correct versions, you're likely not losing too much link juice, and if you've made all the necessary changes in Search Console to set your preferred domain, Google should understand and count those links as all pointing to the same domain. OSE will continue to report on links to the www- and non-www versions separately because of how it reports on subdomains, but Google should get the picture loud and clear.
The biggest thing you can do to show Google "this is the real version of my site" is to start building new, high-quality inbound links. Over time, the volume of inbound inks to the preferred version will overtake the volume of links to the old version, which will reinforce for Google what the correct version is.
-
Try to get as many links changed to the page you've redirected to. Not all juice is passed threw a 301 redirect. I'm not certain on the social metric issues. I haven't seen them to be 100% accurate for any page.
-
Today Twitter make changes and implementing new button so shared will be lost.
OSE count non-www and www as different because bot need to crawl all pages to catch 301 redirect. This isn't real-time or quick so you need little patience. Please check canonical on your WordPress and change all of them to new host (www.example.com). You need to change host in WP -> Settings -> General and in Google SearchConsole preferred domain.
For social buttons - there are few ways how they get URL for sharing. Long story short - with site move you will lost all of your sharing statistics except G+ pluses. There is no way to recover them except if you use data-url for them. But you will share different URL then.
IF you wish to keep number of social shares then you need to 301 www to non-www. Within time OSE will catch this 301 and links will push DA higher there.
Anyway - look messy answer but i know this situation. When you make site one of first job is to check www and non-www also http and https. This make 4 checks (and few more with strange domains as ftp.example.com; mail.example.com) totally just to be sure that site can be seen only in one host. Because later 301 can broke something. And delaying this 301 make things more and more complicated.
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
-
301 Redirects
Hi, Going to be redirecting our current domain to a new domain. Can anyone verify for me that I'm doing it correctly. I want to forward the entire domain plus individual urls. My current structure is below: Options +FollowSymLinks
Moz Pro | | healthpointeseo
RewriteEngine on RedirectMatch 301 ^(.*)$ http://www.new-site.net Redirect 301 /old-page.html http://www.new-site.net/web-page0 -
Need Good Idea for my new site SEO strategy.
Hello, I register new domain and i research on keywords and got 16 keywords for 16 pages one keyword for every page.
Moz Pro | | wildcat143
now i want SEO of my site please give me some good idea how to do my white hat SEO of my website? 16 pages + 16 keywords
How many backlinks submission i can do daily base? Directory submission?
Social bookmarking submission?
Blog comment?
Articles submission?
any more..................... Hope you will give me positive response. Thanks0 -
Should I be running my crawl on our www address or our non-www address?
I currently run our crawl on oursitename.com, but am wondering if it should be run on www.oursitename.com instead.
Moz Pro | | THMCC0 -
New on SEO Moz and need help regarding panda recover.
Hello Dear Members, I am a new member to not only seomoz but to the SEO World as well. I was learning and implementing SEO from the last 5,6 months and got my website on Google.com page 1. I was quite happy with all the results. I recently got adsense approved on my site and was quite happy with the earnings as well. Unfortunately the most recent Panda update has effected most of my SEO efforts I was doing from the last 5,6 months. My rankings are effected a lot and same with my earnings from adsense. My rankings are effected in this manner. A couple of keywords that were in top 3 spots (1st page Google.com) are now at 7,8 (1st page Google.com) position. There are 3,4 pages that were previously on 5,6 spot (1st page Google.com) are now on 15, 16 spot (2nd page Google.com). Now I want to ask what tools from seomoz can help me to regain my lost positions in Google? Secondly what type of strategy (backlinks) can help me to regain the lost rankings? Best Regards Sam
Moz Pro | | sampaul5490 -
Open Site Explorer Issue - Pullng up No-follow links when settings ask for Follow + 301 Redirect..
Anybody else having this issue? Here lately when I am doing competitive research on open site explorer I set it to only pull up followed + 301 redirects and it will still pull up no-follow competitors links. Can anybody help me out here?
Moz Pro | | axzm0 -
Drastic Difference between Ranking in Seomoz Keyword Ranking and non-personalized Google US Search
Hi everybody, for some of our keywords we saw a huge drop in ranking in the Seomoz Dashboard, yet when performing a non-personalized Google US search we still hold our old positions. Now, I am worried whether this is an upcoming Google penalty or just some bug in the latest crawl. Did anybody ever experience something similar and how could we find out if we were indeed penalized by Google (as we did some major linkbuilding campaign for these keywords recently)? Cheers and a major thanks for your suggestions, Tobias
Moz Pro | | space560 -
When does Open Site Explorer automatically follow a redirect?
Does anyone know what determines when Open Site Explorer will ask if you meant to type in the redirected URL or when it will automatically change the URL to the www version. example of a site I get asked the redirect question: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comparisons.html?site=checkbook.org Oh Hey! It looks like that URL redirects to www.checkbook.org/. Would you like to see data for <a class="clickable redirects">that URL instead</a>? example of a site that redirects automatically: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comparisons.html?site=healthleap.com
Moz Pro | | irvingw1 -
Is there a Tool to compare Duplicate content for non web Live content?
Is there a tool that can give me % of duplicate content when comparing two pieces of content that are not Live on the web? Like copyscape but for content that may not be indexed by copyscape or not live on the web? Does Word or any other program allow you do do this?
Moz Pro | | bozzie3110