WWW or no-WWW?

Whenever you create a website or a blog it usually can be accessed either through “http://www.domain.com” or “http://domain.com”. While this feature might appear useful at a first sight (since people can type whatever version they prefer) over the long run it will harm your search engine ranking.

The problem arises because Google and other search engines view the two versions as two distinct sites, even if they have the exact same content (technically, in fact, the “www” denotes a subdomain that could point to different content).

Search engine ranking is based, among other things, on the number of incoming links to your site. If you keep the two versions available some people will link to “http://www.domain.com” while other people will link to the “http://domain.com”, basically splitting your backlink count.

www 301 redirectHaving two different versions might damage you in popular lists and social bookmarking sites as well. The picture on the right was extracted from Populicious, a site that lists the most popular sites on Delicious. If you take a look you will notice that Digg is listed both at the 7th and 10th position. This happens because the list treats “http://www.digg.com” and “http://digg.com” as two different sites. Shoud only one version be available the combined number would place Digg on the first position of the list.

How do you solve the problem for your blog? The easiest way is to set up a “301 Permanent Redirect” from the “no-www” version to the one with “www”, or vice-versa. Once the redirect is in place every time a visitor types http://domain.com he will automatically be redirected to the “www” version.

By the way, if you are wondering whether you should go with or without “www”, it does not matter. The important thing is that you pick one and stick with it.

Update: Check out the article “How to setup a 301 Redirect“

Daniel Scocco on November 6, 2006 Subscribe to our RSS Feed

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25 Responses to “WWW or no-WWW?”

  1. aiRah on November 6th, 2006 7:54 am

    wow.. i learned something. :P

    you’re right, some people (like me) just type http://…. without “www”.. and now i realized how important it is.

    have a nice day!
    cheers,
    aiRah

  2. Easton Ellsworth on November 6th, 2006 1:35 pm

    It’s amazing how many big, big companies don’t even follow this simple advice. Thanks, Daniel!

  3. Alister Cameron, Blog Consultant on December 22nd, 2006 9:01 pm

    Man!

    No sooner do I post on this question, do I see find your post!

    It is a matter of great minds thinking alike?!

    Hope so :)

    - Alister

    PS. I’m updating my post with a link to your post here. Good stuff.

  4. VJ on December 23rd, 2006 7:33 pm

    Thanks for the tip - I was wondering about this myself… during hosting acct setup I was asked something about this and I think I chose - either - or just the http://thaipulse without the http://www. Hmmm. I gotta go back and fix this… THANKS!

  5. Carey on December 28th, 2006 10:25 am

    Excellent tip! Also consider if you own multiple domains to the same site (e.g. site.com and site.co.uk). You should apply the same principle i.e. choose one and do a 301 permanent redirect to it from any other domains.

  6. Ben Matheny on January 9th, 2007 6:35 am

    very helpful site! thanks

  7. Ajay D'Souza on January 25th, 2007 2:07 am

    I don’t use the www on most of my sites. Have .htaccess to do all the redirecting.

  8. egon on February 13th, 2007 1:23 pm

    Agreed. I’ve had major problems with this in the past. It’s very important to do one and stick with it, but make sure your .htaccess lets people enter both and still get to the same place. From a technical standpoint, the “no www” is better, but doesn’t really look as good.

  9. free msn chat rooms on November 5th, 2007 9:21 am

    Oh ok thats good to know i may set that up now thanks..

  10. deltrbomondr on November 12th, 2007 4:25 pm

    relaccdardar

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  12. Edward on February 28th, 2008 5:20 am

    thanks for the great tips. I always wondered why I was getting info to access about the same site in two different listings on my site statistics page. Now I know.

  13. wii uk on May 12th, 2008 5:13 pm

    Without www makes for easier access if you type into internet explorer address bar like I do to find wii.com and discover something useful. Like a place to buy wii in the uk http://www.wii.uk.net

  14. online paid surveys on July 1st, 2008 10:25 am

    I have used a permanant 301 redirect to solve this problem. Now only www version is available.

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