http://www. vs. http:// and google ranking

LdyAtavist · #1 (**permalink**) 09-03-2004, 01:02 AM

I just took over a site that someone else has had up and run since 1998. A big problem that I have noticed is that if I access the page using "www." it has a PR0, but if I access it without the "www." it has a PR5. Does google see these as two different sites? Is the PR0 because it is being penalized for being duplicate content of the non "www." version of the site?

I know that in the past, most links have linked to this site using the non "www." version of the URL. I am about to do a link campaign, and would prefer using the URL with "www." in it; would I be better of sticking with the non "www." version of the URL since that is where the most links are pointing now?

sudhani · #2 (**permalink**) 09-03-2004, 03:56 PM

PR and SERPS are totally different.

http://www. or http:// should not make any difference in rankings. Onething that you might do cautiously is to stick to only of the either of the formats.

bhartzer · #3 (**permalink**) 09-03-2004, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Does google see these as two different sites?

Absolutely. In fact, the following are seen as totally different, as well:

www.domain.com
domain.com
www.domain.com/index.html
domain.com/index.html

If you have links (internal or off-site) that go to both www and the non-www version, it's quite possible that you will see one PR on one and another PR on another one.

I've actually had a site that suddenly lost all its rankings due to the fact that there were "a few" links going to the non-www version of my site. Google all of a sudden had decided to index the non-www version instead of the www version (which had hundreds of links going to it).

You can also get stuck with a duplicate content penalty, as well--although this doesn't happen frequently.

To fix it (or prevent it from happening), you should have a 301 Permanent Redirect from one to the other. Since you have a higher PR on the non-www version, you would redirect the www version to the non-www version.

To prevent this from happening

WCD · #4 (**permalink**) 09-05-2004, 05:37 AM

/www.domain.com is a subset of /doman.com

I have even seen sites that will not display using www, (get redirected to another page, eg underconstruction) while they display just fine using non-www.domain.com

Therefore if google has to choice between the two, I believe they will always choose the non-www website.

The problem is, you can not use the redirect in the c/panel, since the source is fixed with the non-www.

Mike
www.failsafemonitor.com

WCD · #5 (**permalink**) 09-05-2004, 06:15 AM

I forgot:

A simple 301 Redirect would look something like:

CODE wrote:
Redirect 301 / http://www.yourdomain.com/

This would be for an apache server and added to a file called .htaccess (basically a .txt file but renamed) and located in your root directory for the site being re-routed (or rather for traffic of the site domain being re-routed).

M
www.failsafemonitor.com

paulhiles · #6 (**permalink**) 09-05-2004, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LdyAtavist

I know that in the past, most links have linked to this site using the non "www." version of the URL. I am about to do a link campaign, and would prefer using the URL with "www." in it; would I be better of sticking with the non "www." version of the URL since that is where the most links are pointing now?

By using the two options, i.e. both 'www' and non 'www' you're essentially splitting your PR between the two.
If you want to maintain your current PR, stick with the non 'www' address, if you'd prefer to use the www prefix, then use redirects as described above. If you're able to update/redirect the vast majority of your inbound links, it shouldn't take too long before your PR picks up.

pedstersplanet · #7 (**permalink**) 09-05-2004, 08:37 AM

Few sites I see set up a redirect (301?) to the www. if it is missed off...... hence this will transfer the PR regardless of IBL are using the www. or not.

Am I right in my theory?

robinev · #8 (**permalink**) 09-05-2004, 04:12 PM

Rather than a permanent redirect to the "www." version of my page (which is the one I prefer to use), I've set up a mod_rewrite conditions in .htaccess to create what are called "canonical hostnames" for any access to the site. (Search for that phrase and "rewrite" to find dozens of pages from folks who actually know what they're doing with this sort of thing -- a category that I don't fall into.)

Although it's longer in my file to handle more conditions, this is (I believe) the part of the rewrite that takes care of the "www":

Code:

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

The server will, as I understand it, send a permanent redirect response to any client requesting any page without "www" in the hostname and will always display the "www" version of the page.

ghancock · #9 (**permalink**) 09-06-2004, 08:43 PM

Guys, I don't quite get it, I'm sorry.

First of all domain names mean nothing to anyone but us as they are only a way for humans to locate addresses of actual machines and nothing more. Depending on what browser you use you will notice placing a website name only without the www, will cause the browser to place the www in front of it. Depending on how a domain is setup on the DNS server its possible that not putting the www in front of the domain would yield an incorrect domain which one of you mentioned above. Therefore I'd think you would always want that included.

Lastly, you can not control who links to your site nor what address they place there. So how on earth would you keep Google from splitting your PR and/or screwing this up for you. I find it hard to believe that Google would do something so stupid as we all know that both http://www and www all point to domains. What purpose would there be in breaking those two things into 2 different domains?

Sorry, I'm just trying to follow along here and I must be missing something.

Thanks,

glenn

paulhiles · #10 (**permalink**) 09-06-2004, 10:14 PM

Glenn, I agree with much of what you're saying.. that as far as visitors are concerned.. it shouldn't matter whether they type in using the 'www' prefix or not they should still arrive at your site. If a site has custom headers assigned, then this may complicate things, but on the whole.. the site should still be available.

However, for the purposes of Google assigning PR, the difference is important and visibly quite apparent.

If you visited my site and omitted the 'www' you would see PR0 for many pages, and low PR for others.. simply adding the www into the URL, you'll see a jump of 3-4 places.

I agree you can't force people to use one form or the other if they're linking to your site. But a combination of some of the above suggestions will certainly help reduce the problem of PR being split between the two addresses.

Paul

ghancock · #11 (**permalink**) 09-06-2004, 10:21 PM

Please give me an example. I choose one of your signature links... erimus.com/ as an example to test your statements. If I go to the full http address that site has a PR of 5. If I then go type in only the erimus.com/ without entering anything in front of it, the browser throws up an http:// in front of it and it has the same PR as the first full domain.

I then entered www without the http in front and the browser throws up the http:// in front of the www that I typed, so it appears that I'm not seeing what you guys are saying. Can you give me a site that proves this theory.

I understand what you are saying, just having a hard time comprehending google being this dumb. As there is no reason for them to handle this in this way except for extreme oversite...

Thanks,

glenn

cbp · #12 (**permalink**) 09-06-2004, 10:31 PM

Google is not that dumb, its USUALLY sees them all as the same page and gives them the same PR, BUT occasionally it does not recognise them as the same page and gives them different PR's (no egs to hand, but I have looked at many egs in the the past) - almost always Google works it out....eventually.

Puting up the 301 redirect from the non-www version of the URL to the www one, just makes sure it happpens.

CBP

paulhiles · #13 (**permalink**) 09-06-2004, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghancock

Please give me an example.

Glenn, just try any of the site's inner pages... you'll soon see the point I'm making.

ghancock · #14 (**permalink**) 09-06-2004, 10:38 PM

Well, I don't seem to be able to. When I click the links the links take me to the full domain name with the http at the begining and both pages are displaying the same PR. I guess you've applied the processes and therefore I can't see the results. Let me try a few other sites and see what happens...

I've tried now 3 other domains and the results are the same. I still do not see the PR values changing no matter which URL I type in...

I'm sorry to be so difficult just want to understand...

glenn

paulhiles · #15 (**permalink**) 09-06-2004, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghancock

I've tried now 3 other domains and the results are the same. I still do not see the PR values changing no matter which URL I type in...

Okay Glenn, I have a slightly better example for you. Try jayde.com with and without the 'www'.
PR currently shows 7 with the 'www' and zero without.

Paul

ghancock · #16 (**permalink**) 09-06-2004, 10:54 PM

Ok, so now you've provided me a very good example of the problem. However, I have one more question. How do we know the PR is different for this site, or the google toolbar PR tool just has a bug in it and is not requesting the correct URL within Google and therefore causing you to think google is viewing the pages as two different pages?

For example: Does the sites ranking in googles search results change or have two different results because of the google toolbar reporting an incorrect value?

thanks,

glenn

WCD · #17 (**permalink**) 09-07-2004, 03:47 AM

Well, jayde.com, just blew my theory that google would always pick the non-www over www.

Glenn, your question is a good one, and maybe if you figure it out, you can let us know? But if you were the owner of jayde.com would it matter even if the it had no other effect? Anotherwords, would you really want your ranking displayed as zero, especially if it occurs on your www site that most people use? check out www.webcoastdesign.com and webcoastdesign.com .

Is is pretty bad when one day you have pr7 and then the next day you have pr0. Your first reaction is, maybe I did something to get banned? Then you find out it is only that the ranking is done on non-www and not www, or vise versa.

You would think google could figure out they are the same site? Is it really possible to make them different?

Mike

pedstersplanet · #18 (**permalink**) 09-07-2004, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WCD

I forgot:

A simple 301 Redirect would look something like:

CODE wrote:
Redirect 301 / http://www.yourdomain.com/

This doesn't work.... I tried this and a time-out response triggered.

Deep13 · #19 (**permalink**) 09-07-2004, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WCD

Well, jayde.com, just blew my theory that google would always pick the non-www over www.

Glenn, your question is a good one, and maybe if you figure it out, you can let us know? But if you were the owner of jayde.com would it matter even if the it had no other effect? Anotherwords, would you really want your ranking displayed as zero, especially if it occurs on your www site that most people use? check out www.webcoastdesign.com and webcoastdesign.com .

Is is pretty bad when one day you have pr7 and then the next day you have pr0. Your first reaction is, maybe I did something to get banned? Then you find out it is only that the ranking is done on non-www and not www, or vise versa.

You would think google could figure out they are the same site? Is it really possible to make them different?

Mike

I think it might be working like this..

Google will take stuff like this...

domain.com - check how many people know about the site (how many linked and all)

then www.domain.com - again check for the links and all..

so if www.domain.com has more links than domain.com then give PR to www.domain.com else domain.com

check this..

link:webcoastdesign.com - 27 pages

link:www.webcoastdesign.com - 21 pages

so webcoastdesign.com gets PR

this same problem is with our site also www.tajonline.com (PR5) and tajonline.com (PR0)

and i think this will stop happening once google knows that www.domain.com and domain.com are same..then you shall get PR same to both (like jayde.com is no PR7 for both)

btw link is just one example there might be many other reasons also.

I hope i am not wrong..

Deep

Deep13 · #20 (**permalink**) 09-07-2004, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedstersplanet

This doesn't work.... I tried this and a time-out response triggered.

you have to set AllowOverride All in httpd.conf

by default its AllowOverride None i suppose...

Regards
Deep

ghancock · #21 (**permalink**) 09-07-2004, 11:16 AM

Well, I'm not expecting a response but I emailed google.com about this problem. This is clearly a bug because they seem to give the site credit for links to both sites, but when it comes to the PR display on the google bar it seems to only display one or the other which is truely stupid.

There is no reason for this behavior, other than just an oversite. I'm still interested in a solution as I don't think we have it quite yet based on everyones comments.

I will post any response I get back from google here if and when I receive it...

glenn