Is there any SEO impact to using "www" vs. non-"www" preferred domain name?
-
My client has been using "www" with his domain and before I took over, has used it in marketing etc. I typically don't use "www" in my wordpress setup, and set non-www as the preferred domain in google analytics and google search console. Does it make any difference? Especially when www resolves to non-www?
I appreciate some guidance with this.
-
Thanks Tymen, but the question was specifically regarding www vs. non-www. Thanks anyway!
-
Hi Cindy, Going over to https://yourdomain.com DOES have a positive effect on SEO. Maybe it is wise to do that since you are changing anyway.
Regards, Tymen
-
Thanks, that's what I thought!
-
No, it does not matter what you choose so long as you choose one. In my opinion (I am one of the last baby boomers), my generation is more apt to use www than millenials. But, I have used non www since I knew it was irrelevant a long time ago.
So if you type in drumBEATMarketing.com in the search navigation you will see our site resolve as www.drumBEATMarketing.com. If we had originally set the preferred domain as non www, and you type in www.drumBEATMarketing.com, it would have resolved without the www. Just choose one in search console - (GWMT) and all will be well with the world.
No better UI/UX either way.
Best
-
That's what I thought. My contact seems to believe that the CEO is convinced that it DOES make a difference. I would think that Google would give preference over making the UX better - typing in www doesn't seem to do that. Just to be sure - non-www is better than www?
-
It doesn't matter which you use. When you set up the preferred domain in the search console (GWMT), if you set as www, it will resolve as www. If you set as non www it will resolve as that.
Either way, when you type in www if it is non www as preferred, you will land on the preferred domain.
Best
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What if i dont use an H1, but rather, h2 with multiple keywords.
the reason i dont want to use h1 is because i can have only one h1, however if i use several h2s. is it gonna help me rank? bacause google likes h1 more than h2, is google gonna give more priority or same priority to h2., and if that priority is gonna be less, what will be the percentage of that lessness? for ex: h1 gets 90 score if my h1 is missing how much score my h2 will get out of hundred(i know there is no such metric but i am just wondering anyways)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sam09schulz0 -
Old subdomains - what to do SEO-wise?
Hello, I wanted the community's advice on how to handle old subdomains. We have https://www.yoursite.org. We also have two subdomains directly related to the main website: https://www.archive.yoursite.org and https://www.blog.yoursite.org. As these pages are not actively updated, they are triggering lots and lots of errors in the site crawl (missing meta descriptions, and much much more). We do not have particular intentions of keeping them up-to-date in terms of SEO. What do you guys think is the best option of handling these? I considered de-indexing, but content of these page is still relevant and may be useful - yet it is not up to date and it will never be anymore. Many thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | e.wel0 -
Duplication Effects on Page Rank and Domain Authority
Hi Does page rank and domain authority page rank drop due to duplication issues on a web domain or on a web page? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SEOguy10 -
What could go wrong? SEO on mobile site is different than desktop site.
We have a desktop site that has been getting worked on over the year regarding improving SEO. Since the mobile site is separate, the business decided to not spend the time to keep it updated and just turned it off. So any mobile user that finds a link to us in search engines, goes to a desktop site that is not responsive. Now that we're hearing Google is going to start incorporating mobile user friendliness into rankings, the business wants to turn the mobile site back on while we spend months making the desktop site responsive. The mobile site basically has no SEO. The title tag is uniform across the site, etc. How much will it hurt us to turn on that SEO horrid mobile site? Or how much will it hurt us to not turn it on?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CFSSEO0 -
Dump Penguin Hit Domain
Just wanting to get some feedback from others dealing with Penguin hits on client's websites. We've got one particularly client that has been hit badly because of a high proportion of link toxicity. After running the Cemper Detox Tool we found that only about 25 links are healthy. We're actually thinking of dumping the domain and moving the website to a new domain and starting again with link building (manually grabbing as many of the existing healthy links as possible on the way). Has anyone out there used this strategy? What do you think of the potential of the Sandbox of the new site vs. the Penguin hit on the old site. Do you think the 'drag' of Penguin is higher than the 'drag' of the Sandbox on rankings? Thanks guys, look forward to your insight!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mavster0 -
Asynchronous loading of product prices bad for SEO?
We are currently looking into improving our TTFB on our ecommerce site. A huge improvement would be to asynchronously load the product prices on the product list pages. The product detail page – on which the product is ordered- will be left untouched. The idea is that all content like product data, images and other static content is sent to the browser first(first byte). The product prices depend on a set of user variables like delivery location, vat inclusive/exclusive,… etc. So they would requested via an ajax call to reduce the TTFB. My question is whether google considers this as black hat SEO or not?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jef22200 -
Keyword Named Domains
First, I'm new to SEO so bear with me. My company owns a list of domains with names that are keywords for us. Right now, all those domains are redirecting to our main site. None of the domains has ever had content; they were purchased recently and simple redirected. My questions are: 1) is there any value in having domains that are exact keywords on which we'd like to rank, (i.e. does this work to improve site traffic and ultimately rankings, or is this a black hat tactic)? and, 2) would there ever be any value in turning these sites into landing pages with content and outbound links that lead to our original site? Thanks for your advice.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SpearOne0 -
302 redirects - redirecting numerous domains into main primary domain
302 Redirects - We are a digital agency carrying out some SEO analysis for a potential client. The client has bought over 150 different domains and redirected (302) them into his main domain. The domains were bought up based on relevant industry keywords and protection. On first instance this seems like a Black hat technique that Google would most definitely punish - buying up domains and redirecting them to main website. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Seanbain0