Domain/Page Authority http://www VS http://

[RobinOctane]

Curious.

I have a client who has more links and a few citations pointing to http://bobshouseofmonkeys.com

However their website lives at www.bobshouseofmonkeys.com.

But they have more domain/page authority pointing (okay one single point of Page Authority more). AND as you can see more Root domains and Total links pointing to the http://bobshouseofmonkeys.com


This is for www.bobshouseofmonkeys.com


Should I see about changing the htaccess file and making the site live at http://bobs? And then setup the 301 to www.?

Thanks!

 

[Blake Denman]

I usually set all client domains to be non www. This is the code that I add to their htaccess file that makes it do just that:

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

You won't have to do any 301 rewrites, this takes care of the entire site.

 

[johncrenshaw]

We usually pick one for the primary and 301 the other version. We pick one by googling the company and seeing if the www or non-www shows up.

That said, while I know it's best practice to redirect to one or the other, I'm not sure it makes a difference - hostname and determining whether content on 2 different hostnames is the same is about the most trivial task an SE could perform.

The only place where I've actually seen it become a real concern is with page speed optimization. I'm no page speed expert but it has something to do with cookies being set for the entire domain I think.

 

[Robert Ramirez]

If you 301 from one to the other the link equity should pass. I don't think it matters which you choose. If you have it setup as www. currently, stick with it, just make sure the htaccess file is redirecting all of the other paths.

Also do a site: search to make sure GOogle has followed all of the redirects and are not returning non-www versions of your pages in SERPs.

 

[Laustin1878]

Technically, if the site is showing up for both domains, Google treats them as 2 different sites, one a duplicate of the other. You should choose one and either 301 redirect or follow the advice in Blake's post. I always use this tool to verify redirects: Search Engine Friendly Redirect Checker

You should also go into Google Webmaster Tools to choose the preferred domain. FYI, you'll need to verify both sites separately in order to do this.

WWW vs non-WWW is a preference. As long as one points to the other, you are good. In your case, it doesn't seem like there is an overwhelming difference between authority. I might opt to go with the version that has the most citations using on or the other.