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To www Or Not To www

- Posted by to Technical SEO


I took over the development of my employer's website about 6 months ago, and in the past few months we've begun optimizing the site to compete in our regional market of sunrooms, patio enclosures, and other home improvement services.  In the process, we began to speak with SEO firms about what our site needed to compete in the serps.  One issue they never failed to point out is our site's duplicate index in Google due to the www and sans-www index.  I didn't understand what the problem is with this, and I still don't.

Question 1: Does it matter if you have two indexes?

Not really understanding the issue but trusting the advice was sound, I set up a 301 redirect and used Google's webmaster tools to set my preferred domain. I opted to set up the redirect and the preferred domain to, and I dropped the www.  The domain is about 2500 days old, and we do have a spattering of incoming links (most of them are pointed to

Question 2: Was it a mistake to drop the www?

I'm completely new to SEO, so I apologize if this issue has been cover countless times already.


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  • vangogh99

    If I'm not mistaken search engines see the www version as a subdomain of the non www version. A lot of large sites that allow users to set up their own web pages will create the urls like:

    It wouldn't make sense for a search engine to treat either as part of the same domain as It gives the subdomains an unfair advantage and could also lead to less than relevant results. So the two urls above are seen as two completely different domains. is technically a subdomain of It's just so universal we forget that it is.

    So search engines will see and as two separate sites What happens if you don't redirect is that both versions of the site can be indexed, which could lead to duplicate content issues.

    From a link building perspective 10 people might link to and 10 might link to so instead of the 20 links you have to one site the search engines see it as 10 links to each of two sites, greatly diluting your link building efforts.

    The 301 (or permanent) redirect tells search engines that one of the versions is really the same as the other so with the link scenario above all 20 would be seen pointing to the same site.

    As far as whcih way you should set up the redirec www->non www or non www->www it really doesn't matter. You just want to be consistent and pick one or the other. Most people choose to point the non www version to the www version possibly because many people still think you need to type the www and it just seems more natural. It's probably the convention, but it really won't make a difference if you redirect the other way around.

    • Brian Brown

      ditto vangogh99 ;)


      as for choosing one or the other, it really comes down to preference. It really doesn't matter what people type or expect to type in since the redirect will get them where they need to go... in honestly, I doubt most people would notice the difference once they got there anyway.

      It may sound crazy, but it can even come down to "what looks good" which may explain why a lot of people still go with the www as it provides a sense of symmetry... may seem more "balanced" than

      • vangogh99

        I agree the choice is just preference and it really doesn't matter which one you point to the other. I think non www to www is the more common way, but the important part is making sure one points to the other.

    • Ciaran Norris

      I'm with identity - ditto vangogh!

      Said what I was thinking, but wasn't able to express as eloquently as he did.

      And just to highlight it again, it DOES matter. When this happened on one of our sites on a much bigger scale (ie, this issue but with .com,, .eu, etc.., so that we ended up with around 20 versions of the same site) we actually got banned from Yahoo's trusted feed - not good!

  • Ciaran Norris

    1. Yes - having two, seperate, indexable versions of your site sets you up to have problems with duplicate content, potentially leading to penalties (or at least making it harder for the engines to decide which of your sites to rank)
    2. I'd probably have done it the other way around (set it so that typing in the non-www redirects to the www) but it shouldn't really make any difference.

    *Battens down hatches waiting for storms of disagreement*

    PS - Don't feel bad about the question - if you don't know, the best way to find out is to ask.

    • Matt Sandy

      I agree with everything minus the whole pentalties bit. Google will just get confused on which one to rank. I do think that having the www is better than having the site listed in google without the www. I have been setting it up as www in webmaster tools. I haven't done the 301 or 302, but that doesn't really matter in google as long as you aren't making your links something horrible like [a href="/index.html"]home[/a].

    • chil_uno


      I was taught this and as a matter of course always redirect to www, but why is this still an issue for the search engines, and why is duplicate content an issue? Even if I didn't do the redirect I don't have two sites, just two URLs to access the same document.


    • Pete Wailes

      First point - I'd say it's more a filter than a penalty.  *Voice of GoogleBot* "Oh, here's the same thing twice?  Well, I'll put up this one as it has more links and better off page optimisation"

      Second point - Yeh, I'd agree with that 

  • rmccarley

    Lots of good comments here but one point seems to be missed which is why solving the canonical (to www or not) issue is so important.

    It comes down to two things:

    1. Duplicate Content - Yes Google (and other SEs) see the "two versions" of the site as seperate entities... with the same content. Pretty much the way VanGogh explained.

    2. Link Power - I saw consistency being pointed out above but your can't force people that link to you to do it "right" so you may as well solve the issue yourself.

    I've seen mixed results with the Webmaster Tools feature at Google and there are other search engines seeing double so I wrote up a full article about the problem that includes a nifty tool to generate the code for you to insert into your .htaccess. Mostly because it has a lot of nonsensicle characters and I usually screw it up the first few attempts so this solved the problem for me.  :D

    Seeing Double: Fixing the Canonical Issues in Search Engines 

    PS. I really think this is another nofollow-style "fix" that shouldn't be a problem but is. Google and the other SEs should see through this by now and these types of solutions force webmasters to ignore the rule "build for users, pretend like search engines don't exist". Total crap IMO.

    • Ciaran Norris

      Isn't this exactly what vangogh said?


      • rmccarley

        Oops - guess so! That's what I get for reading too fast!

        Well, 2 matching opinions has to count for something, right? 

        • vangogh99

          Funny Randall. I do that myself sometimes. I think enough of us have shared the same opinion so I hope we've all made things clearer for those who had questions.

          And good to know we share the same opinion. 

          vangogh99 edited 2007-03-21T07:01:07-07:00
        • Ciaran Norris

          Make that 3 - I just took too long explaining the 1st point and didn't get round to splitting link equity!


          • vangogh99

            I did mean to include you. Sorry if I didn't. I think we've all been of the same opinion in this post.

  • Pro
    Judith Lewis

    Hmmmm.... argument for wither side:

    www - most users assume a website starts with www

    non-www - when buying a domain name for a search query (ie. if users searching for "dragon jewelry" type "dragon jewelry" in to the URL box as if it was a search box, the url is the resulting destination) it would be better to have DNS set up for the expected arrival method.

    So an argiment for each side I guess... but vangogh99 has excellent points

    • rjb627

      I was looking for a post that talked about www vs non-www and I came upon this one.  I really liked Vangogh's points, and shared them with our IT dept. Our sites have both, so we want to 301-redirect to just the www. Excellent post and well articulated.

  • Joshua Sciarrino


    Because of this statement. I'd say it was a mistake in changing from www to non-www.

    Although this is an old post (over a year ago), I think it's still relevant and helpful to anyone who reads this blog entry & comments.

  • Chris Rothwell

    If I thought I could add anything that you've all already covered, I'd add it, but you all hit the nail on the head. Good conversation starter and interesting post!

  • Klikhir

    I'd keep the www since most users (not us smarties) type www. before everything else.

  • akuzenski

    This is a good question.  I've seen articles by "purists" saying that all addresses should drop the www, arguing that http in the address says the same thing as www.  Meaning they think we all work for the Department of Redundancy Department.  Hee.

     Anyway, the comments here are a couple of arguements to the contrary.  I  can certainly understand wanting to keep the www in, just because most users will assume they need it and type it that way.  Most sites that are known without the www redirect from the address with www, ie Wordpress.

     In other words, I guess I don't know either!  I guess we'll see from the comments you get.

  • cameron.pease

    I still don't understand why it matters if I keep or drop the www?  As long as it's consistant...correct?

    Is it just there for looks?

    ? I do think that having the www is better than having the site listed in google without the www.?


    Option 1 - Change my 301 to www.  change my preferred domain  in google to include the www.

    Option 2 - Leave it all sans www.

    What's the difference?