Yes WWW or No WWW
Posted on January 19, 2008
Filed Under Internet Marketing, SEO |
There are people on both sides of the issue.
If you don’t know what I mean, let me quickly explain.
When you enter the web address to a site, it will work with and without the www part.
www.example.com goes to the same page as just example.com
Now, which one is best?
Well, that is a choice you need to make on your own I believe. I personally made the choice to go no-www. You’ll notice all my pages are without the www, and if you enter a www address, it will redirect you to the no-www version. I will provide you with some sources to help you make your choice.
The No WWW Camp:
These guys see the www segment of a web address as useless and depreciated. If the address works without it, why must it be included? It avoids extraneous typing. Saves time when speaking. ETC.
More information on this philosophy can be found on No-www Wikipedia
The Yes-WWW Camp:
And an article on why www is not deprecated
Why is this important?
Now regardless of your choice, it is important to pick one. The two domains are treated as separate sites. The www site and non-www site will be listed on Google and other search engines independently. So having two versions of your site can really hurt your rankings. It is a good SEO practice to pick one.
Google themselves state that you need to select a preferred domain. Check out Google’s article: What’s a Preferred Domain?
Yes - WWW and No - WWW How To:
Yes WWW:
Created a .htaccess file in your root directory and enter the following:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
No WWW:
Create a .htaccess file in your root directory and enter the following:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
No WWW with Wordpress:
If you run a Wordpress blog (which you should), than setting up No WWW is very simple.
Check out the Wordpress nowww plugin
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Yes WWW or No WWW | Selecting Your Preferred Domain…
Google themselves state that you need to select a preferred domain. This article provides sources to outline the differences in going No-WWW or Yes-WWW. It then outlines how to set up a .htaccess file for either set up. This concept is important becaus…
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