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

 

[Peter]

The argument against having the same content on the www. domain and the non www. domain is that search engines such as google could flag 1 as duplicate content (although I would hope google already accounts for this).

An easy way to forward now www. traffic to the www. domain is to use mod_rewrite in a .htaccess file:-

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

Of course change the domain name in the code. This will redirect to your www. site and give out a 301 header which tells the browser/search engine that the site has moved. So if google has any non www. sites indexed (or any other search engine for that matter) it should end up dropping it in favor of the www. equivalent pages instead.

 

[tristanperry]

Okay thanks for that I've applied this change and am hoping it works out well. I've just seen that my site's been dropped a place (from 1st to 2nd) when searching for the site's primary keyword which is confusing/annoying

 

[shockie]

I've just seen that my site's been dropped a place (from 1st to 2nd) when searching for the site's primary keyword which is confusing/annoying

wow, i wish i could complain that my site dropped from 1st to 2nd on the serp, lol!! the drop could be due to a variety of factors though, and if you're really nit picky you can look into those. however, if you're in the top 10 (first page) then you're in great shape.

 

[tristanperry]

Okay point well taken lol. Thanks Yeah I mean the ranking is fine at the moment, so nevermind me!

 

[Skinny]

I always forward my sites from example.com to www.example.com. I find that it works well in defeating the duplicate content penalty from Google, but to me it makes it easier on the user.

If you type in with the www congratulations you are there. If you forget (don't worry we'll send you there).

Skinny