HTTP vs WWW vs neither

ouchthathurts · Feb 23, 2012

Hey there

When it comes to SEO how does this come into play?

for example if I go to google and type in

site:http://www.mywebsite.com

it returns 5 results, the results are really terrible - mostly they are index of /images etc stuff that really isnt relevant and even a few 404s

site:www.mywebsite.com

returns the same piss poor 5 results

site:mywebsite.com

returns 3 pages of content all of my proper pages

when it comes to creating links to your website am I right in thinking i should stick to mywebsite.com and miss out http and www completely?

Narrator · Feb 23, 2012

When creating links you should always include http://

As for www it doesn't matter if you use
http://www.yoursite.com
or http://yoursite.com

But once you start building links for one stick with it, and have the other redirect using .htaccess

Cheers!

cherub · Feb 23, 2012

It doesn't particularly matter but you should pick either www.domain.com or domain.com, and then be consistant in using that format when building links. Also, setup a 301 redirect from the www. version to the non-www version, or vice-versa. You should always include http:// when linking from an external site otherwise it won't be a valid link

nikao · Feb 23, 2012

cherub said:
It doesn't particularly matter but you should pick either www.domain.com or domain.com, and then be consistant in using that format when building links. Also, setup a 301 redirect from the www. version to the non-www version, or vice-versa. You should always include http:// when linking from an external site otherwise it won't be a valid link

wow not so fast... your 301 redirect mentioned as 'also' is prerequisite for the first part of your post

It DOES matter if you look at www.domain.com or domain.com, especially if you have both available and you don't redirect one to the other.
google will see this as 2 separate sites... so make sure you redirect one to the other.. (doesn't really matter if you pick www or non-www)

reb0rn · Feb 23, 2012

i have saw blogs that they mess up your backlink if you don't use http://

nikao said:
wow not so fast... your 301 redirect mentioned as 'also' is prerequisite for the first part of your post

It DOES matter if you look at http://www.domain.com/ or domain.com, especially if you have both available and you don't redirect one to the other.
google will see this as 2 separate sites... so make sure you redirect one to the other.. (doesn't really matter if you pick www or non-www)

he is also right

ouchthathurts · Feb 23, 2012

thanks for the quick response BHW

Ive been trying to track certain keywords for my website and have been pulling my hair out thinking its not even in the top 1000.

Today I tried checking without http://www. in the URL and behold im in the SERPS!

i'm still unsure what I should do with htaccess from a SEO point of view

danny1 · Feb 23, 2012

Set the preferred domain in Google Webmaster Tools:

Code:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=44231

Then do a 301 redirect from your non-preferred domain to your preferred one. If the site's hosted on on Linux servers with the Apache Mod-Rewrite module enabled, modify the htaccess:

Code:

http://natewhitehill.com/have-you-set-your-preferred-domain/

raven123 · Feb 23, 2012

Hmm, I usually have the highest count with http://. Weird.

usually just the domain name has %50 less, and www. 70% less.

hiderightnow · Feb 24, 2012

Yeah, just remember that you can make http://mydomain.com and http://www.mydomain.com point to different servers, and that's why Google interprets them as such. It's important to have a consistent notation throughout, and redirect from the less-ranked domain to the other one.

ouchthathurts · Feb 25, 2012

Cheers guys

I went to google webmaster tools and set preferred domain to www.

I changed my htaccess to this

DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mywebsite.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.mywebsite.com/ [R=301,L]

But when I try to visit my page I get

Error 310 (net::ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS): There were too many redirects.

Does my htaccess look ok to you guys?

I have a plugin that redirects certain pages so I think thats the problem, thing is I disabled the plugin with the same error :/ tried clearling cookies/cache also

St0n3y · Feb 26, 2012

I had a nice written out post for this explaining when to use www and not to use www and why with examples. But the site would not allow me to post it said error in submission so here it is. for your blog issues make sure wordpress has www if you wana go with www and no www without. as for www or not on links. www for sites that are selling stuff. If its not selling stuff it doesn't matter. just pick one and stick to it

GangsterProfit · Feb 26, 2012

St0n3y said:
I had a nice written out post for this explaining when to use www and not to use www and why with examples. But the site would not allow me to post it said error in submission so here it is. for your blog issues make sure wordpress has www if you wana go with www and no www without. as for www or not on links. www for sites that are selling stuff. If its not selling stuff it doesn't matter. just pick one and stick to it

would you care to explain why selling stuff matters?

DonArctic · Feb 26, 2012

Always use the only one url for your home page. I encurage you use the www version and redirect all the other to the www version.

You can check for sites that you have to redirect with ragepank redirect checker. They even give you the code that you can post in .htaccess. Make sure you get familiar with regular expressions too. It is amazingly useful.

ouchthathurts · Feb 26, 2012

Well i think I got it working

I went to my cPanel and done a redirect to see how they set up the htaccess file and wow its very different from all the other setups ive seen on google it has \ and / inbetween words - really makes no sense to me but i think i managed to rewrite it to do what want

So this should redirect http://www.my-website.com and www.my-website.com to mywebsite.com

Ive set the preffered domain to my-website.com in google webmasters

I chose my-website.com because it had more pages indexed in google (5 pages worth of content)

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^http\:\/\/www\.my\-website\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.my\-website\.com$
RewriteRule ^/?$ "my\-website\.com\/" [R=301,L]

HTTP vs WWW vs neither

ouchthathurts

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Narrator

Power Member

cherub

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nikao

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reb0rn

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ouchthathurts

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danny1

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raven123

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hiderightnow

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ouchthathurts

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St0n3y

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GangsterProfit

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DonArctic

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ouchthathurts

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