Www and non www

I've just had an SEO report on my site and it said there is no 301 redirect setup between the www and non www. I get the same site whichever I type into the web browser. Is this something I need to look at or not.

Thanks for you help

Yes this is something you should attend to.

This is covered under the term called a "Canonical Domain Issues"

Effectively domain.com and www.domain.com are different sites, regardless of the fact that they show the same site.

You may wonder why this is a problem. The reason is if someone links to your site with www.domain.com and someone else with domain.com (ie non www. version) you do not get the link weight distributed to the same URL which is also effectively the "same" site in this scenario.

You should use .htaccess to redirect any non www. URL link to the www.version. This ensures you achive maximum link weight and bennefit.

You can also set a preffered version to display in Google Webmaster Tools however thi sis not a solution to the canonical domain issue but it helps avoid confusion and provides a more concise solution.

both vesions have the same pr of 4 and both come up with the same links in google. Is there a problem do you think

Sure and Google supports "both" versions because they are related to the same domain [www being a sub-domain of the root].

This is a bit like having an airplane with two wings... but one is counter-flipped so it doesn't provide any lift... the plane will still fly but to get off the ground you need twice the speed.

e.g. On your website everything will look OK but technically you'll need twice the links/pages to get the same ranks as a site that has domain redirected to www.domain (or vice versa).

Oh, so it could make quite a big difference then? I have had a look into it and all the stuff about the redirects mentions linux servers. My site is on a hosted windows server. Would my ISP have to do the redirect. I do have the choice to move my site to a linux site, would that be the best option.

Thanks again.

I disagree, its not such a big deal especially for Google. The issue is page rank or link juice split between the 2 versions of the url. If you have urls which use different cases (lower/upper) you also face the same issue.

If google crawls both it will realise they are the same page and will give equal page rank especially when its just a www non www version. It is best practice to sort out this issue just dont sweat too much about it.

Tell us what language your site is written in and someone if not me will beable to tell you how to do this.

When we use IIS server and we don't have access the server site because when we are working on client site in that cases what we have to do for sort out the canonical issue and pages are in HTML extension.

Can you please explain what you actually want to say.

Yes I can I am doing research on canonical issue,
how can we sortout in different circumtances our canonical issues?
So, I asked the other circumtances what I have to do for sortout the canonical problem.
If we use linux server then we add our code in .htaceess file
but if we use IIS server in that case what we have to do sortout the canonical issue when our site is html file and this is shared hosting in that case you will ask you hosting service provider to use ISAPI rewrite dll to get you the 301 redirection rule for the website, but you hosting provide diable to understanding your problem.
In that case what you will do?

iis needs to be completed by the webhost. They are the only ones who can set the non www redirect. Unless you have IISREWRITE, which at any rate costs $199 and needs to be installed by the webhost for you to use it.

If your webhosts will not do so then change hosts, if they tell you it cant be done on a shared server they are wrong or lying. I have many sites on an IIS shared server and we have no problems getting this accomplished.

You could also set the preferred domain in google site maps. I am not exactly sure how this affects links pointing at the unpreffered domain, whether they still pass LJ or if it just effectively drops the unprefferred domain...

What you see isn't always the case... and the issue is not just a matter of PageRank.

You may do link development and request all your links as www.domain... where natural links from website "just linking" may use domain.com... Google nor any search engine in default to change links destinations without your permission... as such you ranks can be greatly affected.

You shouldn't really care whether all PageRank is on either or... unless 'of course' you're selling links to others then the lost "higher PageRank hype" can be a negative to revenue stream potential.

I did say page rank and link juice



I realise google wont change your links but I do think we are underestimating how clever google is. Are you just speculating. Im thinking about how you could prove what your saying but its not easy to test. The obvious indicator is the pagerank of the site which I have never seen as different for www and non www. You say the public page rank shown is not a good indicator of a sites worth according to google but its a good indicator to me that google has realised this is infact the same page if both versions of the url have the same page rank.

My arguement is pointless ofcourse as I agree it should be addressed as best practice. Im about to sort out the upper case lowercase canonical issue on a site I develop but its a low priority for me.