Google Picking non-www version

[TravG]

Hey All,

Been awhile since been active like I use to but I need to start spending some time on my websites again. With that said, I am a little behind the times and may have some dumb questions but......

So I noticed in my one website Google has picked the non-www version of pages to be dominant. So does that mean I need to go in and change all the manual internal links I have in the website to the non-www version? Luckily it is in wordpress so many of the links auto updated. Its just the once I physically put in that still have the www page address.

Just thought I would ask before spending all day doing that!

Thanks

[baldidiot]

Guessing there was no redirect between the www and non-www so google just picked one? If you want one over the other just set up the redirect.

If you're not bothered and happy to go for the google preferred version (although in that case you should still set up a redirect from www to non-www) you can easily change the links by doing a search and replace on the database.

If you want a plug in then Better Search Replace is easy to use: https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-search-replace/

Just take back ups of everything first in case it all goes tits up.

[TravG]

Im guessing I must not have did the redirect for whatever reason -ug. You mean in the htaccess file right?

G picked the non www version which everything is going to. Good suggestion on the find/replace. Guess Ill get to work.....

[baldidiot]

Im guessing I must not have did the redirect for whatever reason -ug. You mean in the htaccess file right?

G picked the non www version which everything is going to. Good suggestion on the find/replace. Guess Ill get to work.....

Yeah if you're happy with the non-www and that's what google is preferring maybe stick with that, but I'd definitely redirect the www otherwise you might not get the full benefit of those links.

There's loads of ways to do it. Can do it in htaccess. If you use something like redirection (eg: for aff links or whatever) that has an option to set a preferred domain. Pretty sure you can do it in cloudflare as well if you use that.

[gm2891]

Also, don't forget to set a canonical tag for your preferred version.

[jack87]

I'm a bit confuse. I did not heard that google release some update about the non-www and with www So I think no need for change, just mainly focus uploading good and reliable content to help your site ranking.

[universal4]

Google has been known to possibly treat the www. and non www. domains as separate sites, but that goes back MANY years.

Google started offering methods to take care of this way back, they first recommended the htaccess/web.config redirect likely since before you became an affiliate, or knew what the acronym seo stood for.

Here is a discussion from Google that happened in 2005, and this discussed how to verify and point even their old school search console to the preferred version.
https://developers.google.com/search...rsions-of-site

I agree that doing the redirect is the best since even if incoming links come in both ways with or without the www, google sees the 301 to your preferred version and treats it accordingly.

Rick
Universal4

[pokeraussie]

Is it a WordPress site? If so, in general settings have you used the www or non-www version for your WordPress Address (URL) ?

[jamesbanks]

Apply the redirect from non-www to www or vice-versa at the DNS level depending on how Google has indexed the site.

You could try resubmitting sitemaps to Google Search Console if you have changed how the domain prefix shows up in SERPS.

[nehakakar]

In WordPress, you can update the internal links
Settings > General > In the "WordPress Address (URL)" and "Site Address (URL)" fields,
make sure you have entered the non-www version of your website's URL. save it

WordPress should automatically update the internal links in your content to reflect the non-www version.

[universal4]

If in fact it is wordpress, there may be extra steps after changing the www to non-www or changing non-www to www urls.

If you use yoast, I suggest also adding the yoast helper plugin and reset the indexables after the change. Then when that completes run the seo optimization again.

If you had a habit of using absolute links throughout the content, you might want to search for those in the database and fix them, and consider the indexables fix again.

However, as baldidiot stated above 2 years ago, you should also set the redirect in the htaccess or web.config to reflect what you want as the primary url.

If any links are pointed at the version you are not using it will reflect a 301 to the correct version.

Rick
Universal4

[Former Member 14]

If in fact it is wordpress, there may be extra steps after changing the www to non-www or changing non-www to www urls.

you should also set the redirect in the htaccess or web.config to reflect what you want as the primary url.

I'll also add, if your using a dedicated IP, that too needs to be redirected to the URL you want to display/use. I'd add the htaccess code but that's on my old PC, which I haven't got currently setup. Good reminder to add that HDD to my new system.