What should I do?

BHW,

Longtime fan, didn't take much thought as to where to ask this question.

So, I've got a list of websites I just purchased and started doing some serious SEO on.
Some of them had a redirect problem. The sites were not redirecting from either non www to www

So, Google had indexed both non www and the www and treated one as duplicate content.
I fixed the redirect error, so they are redirecting properly to the www version.

My problem is this, my rankings completely plummeted. I unfortunately redirected them all to the lower ranking version.
So, my question is, would it be better to leave it alone and rank it on the fixed www version that I have? Or, should I switch the redirect to the non www version, which Google had originally ranked well?

Anybody able to lend some expertise?

Thank you

are you sure that's what's going on? I would be very very surprised if www vs. non-www triggered a duplicate content penalty on the same site. It's very common problem a lot of sites don't redirect.

The sites non www version were indexed on google, and now they're redirected to the www version and they're gone from the rankings because it redirects.

Google does NOT treat www and non www versions of your site as duplicate content! however you need to choose one or the other for backlinking and indexing purposes. You say you purchased the domains (not registered?) so you need to check to determine how the site was been back-linked previously (with or without www) and then continue doing so from previous back link history. I suspect if your site was ranked higher without www then that means that it was prob get most of its links that way.

However either one is fine really as you can just 301 redirect one to the other which you already done and will eventually pass the link choose to the other version but for now your site plummetted becuase of the redirect where it takes time for the non www to be deindexed and redirected to the www version you have set and your rankings will then come back. to avoid this in future, first check how the site was been linked to in the past and just continue that pattern.

Thanks for that info. So, leave it be and the rankings will come back?
I have a team working now on the seo. So, in regards to what you've said, backlinks with the non-www version would be less "valuable' to them than ones www version? Or, does it not really matter?

dmdelectronics said:

Thanks for that info. So, leave it be and the rankings will come back?
I have a team working now on the seo. So, in regards to what you've said, backlinks with the non-www version would be less "valuable' to them than ones www version? Or, does it not really matter?

Click to expand...

Both have equal value but greater value would be given to the version that already has a backlinking history though i have read that Google now automatically treats links the both thesame but i would still prefer to go with what i already said above.

really the main question (apart from the links) depends how you want your site to look in search results. With or without www. Also if your team has already started working with one version and you have 301 redirected to that version that leave things as they are and your site will eventually return.

Use this site to check both versions of your site and then decide how to proceed. http://www.opensiteexplorer.org

I am going to take a different tack. Since the WWW convention is being discontinued, I would forward the www to the non www. Whatever back links you have will flow thru to the correct site. And do this immediately for new domains you create.

Techxan said:

I am going to take a different tack. Since the WWW convention is being discontinued, I would forward the www to the non www Whatever back links you have will flow thru to the correct site. And do this immediately for new domains you create.

Click to expand...

Just curious, what's the advantage to that? I've searched around a bit and it looks like more www than non www are indexed and used?