example.com Vs www.example.com - any difference?

[tristanperry]

Hello,
I remember seeing (but not really reading) an article a while back saying that it's bad to have your domain showing the same content with the "www." in the URL, as without it in the URL.

I also found a blog post on a large webmaster site (titled "example.com vs. www.example.com… trouble!") about this, and the points it given for arguing this is fair enough.

I'm wondering what you all think of this? Is it worth forwarding traffic from example.com to www.example.com?

I have a website, and the www.xxx.org URL has a PR 5, with the xxx.org URL having a PR of 0? I'd like to know if there is something to this, and what's the best method of automatically directing traffic to the www.xxx.org version?
Thanks,
Tristan

[Keyboard Cowboy]

In some cases, google treats site.com and www.site.com as two seperate sites... Note, in some cases. The way I see it, there's no point in taking chances... You might as well do a perm redirect using .htaccess

If you don't know how, simply implement this in your .htaccess file, located in the root of your domain:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(.*)\.site\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.site.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Google will transfer possible PR from the non www version, to the desired www version

[Gerry]

I was thinking a simple redirect may work.

Even if the PR0 has some traffic, it will still increase traffic to the PR5 site. Or, is google seeing this as two different sites?

Perhaps that is where I am going wrong on my site.

Overall, the site is getting on average 1880 hits a day. That is what the stats show. They also include the stats from the redirects, which are included in the totals indicated above.

If the actual site name is getting say 900 a day and the redirects are making up the rest, is it all being considered in the page rank?

[DomainingCom]

Coboy given you the good response!

Make a 301 redirect (also called permanent redirect) from the no www to the www (and avoid 302 redirect or in the long term your site will be dead for sure).

Act "quickly" begore Google detect duplicate content and put you a penalty. The "quickly" depends if you are having links linking to both pages and the PR of these links.

Google never really fixed the cannonical bug and once penalized there is big chance your site fall to the troublion within few months.

Webmasterworld.com is probably the best place about this subject.

...

[David G]

Use permanent 301's instead of 302's. Also, it makes no real difference if you use htaccess to forward to the non-www, or to the www. Just do it consistently with all your url's.

P.S. Regarding possible differences in content, many yrs ago you may occasionally run across different pages at www vs no-www but today that is extremely rare and something I have not seen done in ages but yes, it can be done though I do not see why anyone would do that. In effect, the www is a sub-domain and of course you can make sub-domains which are not www's.

[j8jweb]

these days G treats both the same. The PR scores may be different, but that won't affect ranking. The PR for the www or non www version will be distributed just the same.

[tristanperry]

Thanks for all the replies, they're appreciated

In some cases, google treats site.com and www.site.com as two seperate sites... Note, in some cases. The way I see it, there's no point in taking chances... You might as well do a perm redirect using .htaccess

If you don't know how, simply implement this in your .htaccess file, located in the root of your domain:

[snipped]

Google will transfer possible PR from the non www version, to the desired www version

Yeah I think it may be treating them as different... the different PRs is weird.

Anywhoo thanks a lot for that code, I've added that to my .htaccess file.

Coboy given you the good response!

Make a 301 redirect (also called permanent redirect) from the no www to the www (and avoid 302 redirect or in the long term your site will be dead for sure).

Act "quickly" begore Google detect duplicate content and put you a penalty. The "quickly" depends if you are having links linking to both pages and the PR of these links.

Google never really fixed the cannonical bug and once penalized there is big chance your site fall to the troublion within few months.

Webmasterworld.com is probably the best place about this subject.

...

Okay I've set-up the 301 redirect now. My site's been like this for years (i.e. accessible via www and non-www), however it's only yesterday that I noticed different pageranks between the two, which is odd.

these days G treats both the same. The PR scores may be different, but that won't affect ranking. The PR for the www or non www version will be distributed just the same.

I guess it can't hurt to focus on either the www or the non-www version, though?

Erm.. I've just seen that my site's been dropped a place (from 1st to 2nd) when searching for the site's primary keyword. Is this normal/temporary? I can't imagine why this has happened?
Thanks,
Tristan

[Keyboard Cowboy]

To address an issue raised by one of the above posters, focusing on the www or non www version doesn't matter, just pick one I just think www looks "prettier"

Erm.. I've just seen that my site's been dropped a place (from 1st to 2nd) when searching for the site's primary keyword. Is this normal/temporary? I can't imagine why this has happened?
Thanks,
Tristan

If you change something that hasn't been changed for years/ever, google can in some cases penalize you. However it is unlikely that they will, as long as you keep the current set and theme of your site and try not to dilute it.

You being dropped for something due to redirecting site.com to www.site.com shouldn't be anything but a fluke, and you'll most likely bounce back. Just keep on being consistant and you'll be fine. Whatever you do, don't panic and start changing everything

[tristanperry]

If you change something that hasn't been changed for years/ever, google can in some cases penalize you. However it is unlikely that they will, as long as you keep the current set and theme of your site and try not to dilute it.

You being dropped for something due to redirecting site.com to www.site.com shouldn't be anything but a fluke, and you'll most likely bounce back. Just keep on being consistant and you'll be fine. Whatever you do, don't panic and start changing everything

Okay, thanks for the information

I'll just wait it out and hope everything goes back to normal.
Cheers,
Tristan

[getschoolhelp]

where is the 301 located?

[tristanperry]

In the most top-level directory.... so /public_html/.htaccess
Tristan