Link building to http:// or http://www. does it matter?

[crazihos]

Tweet

Hi guys,

I just bought a new website and the previous owner has it set up as http:// sitename.co.uk

Does anyone know if it really matters if I do my linkbuilding to that or to http:// www. sitename. co.uk?

I hope that makes sense - its difficult to explain? lol

Cheers

Russ

[mtuffin]

301 redirect the non Example Web Page to Example Web Page and then you can link build to Example Web Page

Otherwise just stick to link building to Example Web Page

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

Mike

[HoTMeLter]

probably better doing this too:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.co\.uk$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index\.php
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ http://www.example.co.uk/ [R=301,L]

change the php to html or htm etc depending upon your file extension

The change your xml sitemap homepage to http://www.example.co.uk/
rather than just
index.php or html etc

[crazihos]

Cheers mike,

Does this make a big difference then in G's eyes - do links built to the http:// www. count for nothing unless the page's are 301 redirected?

If so this must really cause an issue for people who have their sites set without the www. as I assume most naturally occuring links will contain a www. ?

cheers

Russ

[Brendon]

>> Does this make a big difference then in G's eyes

Can do, can cause canonical selection and duplicate content problems, not good at all sometimes

>> If so this must really cause an issue for people who have their sites set without the www.

Yup, it's the kind of thing that keeps SEOs in work

[crazihos]

Interesting stuff -

>> Can do, can cause canonical selection and duplicate content problems, not good at all sometimes

Is that something the new canonical initiative between the search engines is ment to solve?

So basicly setting the site to www. and 301ing to keep links to the old pages in place is going to be a pretty sensible step going forward?

Actually the www. redirects to the http:// url already so it may be that a 301 redirect is in place. If so will links built to the www. will be passed onto that anyway?

[moredial]

Search engines don't like redirects so get the domain name correct in the links. The domain is http://domain.tld and a subdomain of that domain is http://www.domain.tld

In theory, they are 2 different domains/sites and there is nothing to stop you from hosting 2 different sites on them, i.e. low res one for mobiles and the other for computer sized browsers.

[Brendon]

>> Is that something the new canonical initiative between the search engines is ment to solve?

Yup. It won't, but that's the theory

>> So basicly setting the site to www. and 301ing

That's how the SEs recommend you do it

>> If so will links built to the www. will be passed onto that anyway?

Yes

[evans11]

If you have some backlinks with "www" and you have some backlinks with "non www" then with www and non www efects on PR, Back-links and ranking also.

[shakir]

Hi guys,

I just bought a new website and the previous owner has it set up as http:// sitename.co.uk

Does anyone know if it really matters if I do my linkbuilding to that or to http:// www. sitename. co.uk?

I hope that makes sense - its difficult to explain? lol

Cheers

Russ

Google treat both as seperate.. and the PR juice will be shared.. So always keep build for any one with /without "www"

[Brendon]

If the 301 is set up correctly, the 2 will be merged in the G database to be identical, so a link to either will count as a link to the one that you have specificed as the ultimate target of the 301