SEO: WWW or not
Written by Malin on August 8, 2007 – 2:00 pm -
Does your domain have a higher pagerank with the www? Or is it the other way around?
That can be a problem when you/others are calculating your pagerank for either advertising purposes or if you submitted the site to a pay per post site.
In the beginning, my other site; infektia.net, had a pagerank of 5 with the www and a pagerank of 3 without the www. Therefore I decided to go with one of them, with the www of course.
Why should you choose one?
You are effectively diluting your effectiveness to the search engines if you have both since the search engines will treat both as two different sites. One called www.yourdomain.com and the other one called yourdomain.com. If you stick with one you won’t loose any traffic, ranking, “points” (lol) or statistics in the long run.
How do I fix this?
There more than one way to fix this. The first way is for more advanced users (but also more effective);
1. Add a 301-redirect to your .htaccess file
The .htaccess file is located in the root of your domain. If not you’ll have to create a text file and name it to .htaccess.
Replace my domain name with your own!
- Add this code if you want to go without the www:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^cactuus\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)$ http://cactuus.com/$1 [L,R=301]
- And this code if you want to include the www:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.cactuus\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^/?(.*)$ http://www.cactuus.com/$1 [L,R=301]
No matter what you choose here the visitor will be redirected to the version you have chosen.
2. Google Webmaster Tools
You can get Google to do this for you by logging in to Google Webmaster Tools and specify the desired version.
3. No WWW plugin for WordPress
If you don’t want to use the www for your domain you can install the No WWW plugin for WordPress to do the job for you.
QUESTION: Did you choose one?
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- Aug 9, 2007: New posts at Cactuus.com | Infektia.net
By JHS on Aug 8, 2007 | Reply
OK, when I bought my domain name, I didn’t know the diff. and got http://www.jhsiess.com.
But I notice that a lot of sites just eliminate the http://www. without my asking them to.
“Does your domain have a higher pagerank with the www? Or is it the other way around?” How do I know?
I don’t get the whole SEO thing. Seriously. I downloaded a plugin: SEO Pack or something like that. But I don’t even understand what to do with it. Or if I need it since the author of my theme says it is SEO ready (or similar verbiage).
Can you explain this stuff in a way that a poor nerd like me can understand?
Thanks!
By Jenny on Aug 8, 2007 | Reply
my url w/no WWW ranks higher then w/the http://WWW. so I fixed it to lose it with the no-www plugin. thanks for the link!!
By Karen Lynch-Live the Power on Aug 8, 2007 | Reply
Mine is the same for both!
I always wondered about the ones who didn’t have the www
and I didn’t even know that my site could be found without it!
By Stephanie on Aug 9, 2007 | Reply
I do the http://www. It really doesn’t matter which you do, so long as you pick one.
By cyberst0rm on Aug 9, 2007 | Reply
I’m still on blogger so most times I specify the address with no http://www.
the address without www has a higher PR though.
cyberst0rm’s tech blog
http://cyberst0rm.blogspot.com
By Matthias Köbrich on Aug 10, 2007 | Reply
recently i created myself a .com address too. i hope i can gain more traffic with this. thank you for the tip, that “www.domain.com” and “domain.com” are treated differently. i didn´t know that. but does this mean anything in terms of backlinks?
for example: does technorati treat these 2 addresses differently and only list one of them? what happens if you leave one address on one day and the other address on the other day? does it cound as 2 backlinks then?
thanks in advance
By Cactuus on Aug 10, 2007 | Reply
@JHS: ““Does your domain have a higher pagerank with the www? Or is it the other way around?” How do I know?”
You can check your pagerank here, try both versions. You can also learn more about SEO if you Google it.
@Jenny: You’re welcome! :)
cyberst0rm: If you sign up for anything that checks your pagerank, make sure you register without the http://www.
By Malin on Aug 15, 2007 | Reply
[quote comment=”28″]recently i created myself a .com address too. i hope i can gain more traffic with this. thank you for the tip, that “www.domain.com” and “domain.com” are treated differently. i didn�t know that. but does this mean anything in terms of backlinks?
for example: does technorati treat these 2 addresses differently and only list one of them? what happens if you leave one address on one day and the other address on the other day? does it cound as 2 backlinks then?
thanks in advance[/quote]
As long as you have created that 301-redirect you don’t have to worry about Technorati or any backlinks, so they won’t be counting your site as two different ones :)
By Michelle at Scribbit on Aug 22, 2007 | Reply
New information for me, thanks for filling us in. I’ll have to fix this.
By Michelle at Scribbit on Aug 22, 2007 | Reply
I’ve been going through this post more carefully, trying to absorb and use all the info and I’ve got a few more questions:
The no-www plug-in, I’m assuming it’s only good for Wordpress, right? Is there an equivalent for Blogger?
And also, I’m just throwing this out but it seems to me that if you were choosing which version of your URL to go with it would be safer to go with the no-www version simply because it’s so common to not use the www in addresses. I rarely–if at all–type the www in and haven’t used it on my address for two years, is it possible that in a few years that it will be altogether abandoned for the sake of efficiency and brevity so that if you have to chose, chose the address with the greater staying power?
Just wondering.
By Itchy on Aug 23, 2007 | Reply
[quote comment=”69″]
The no-www plug-in, I’m assuming it’s only good for Wordpress, right? Is there an equivalent for Blogger?
[/quote]
From what I know, you can’t use plugins with Blogger. And I haven’t really heard anything you can do within Blogger to fix this. What you can do is to register your blogger adress at Google Webmaster Tools, and specify your desired version there. I’m going to write a tutorial on how to add your blogger url there later on. But within the Webmaster Tools there is a tab called “Preferred domain” where you can choose which version you want.
And for your other question:
Yes, I have heard that the www probably will disappear but so you got a point there! I have ignored this though. I think it will take many years before it disappears totally…
By Michelle at Scribbit on Aug 24, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for your comment, I’d be interested in the tutorial you mention, I registered it with Google Webmaster Tools but am not entirely sure if I’ve done it all correctly.