www. missing from Url hurt with searches?

Basikboy said:

I noticed that my cubecart store does not include a www. in the url. Will this hurt anything when considering search engines or SEO in general? Thanks!

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Nope, it doesn't matter at all. Many sites have stopped using the www in their URL.

The only issue that used to be around is if your site responded to both the www version and the non www version. Then, if people linked to both it would sometimes czuse duplicate content issues with search engines. I don't think this is as much of a problem these days, but to prevent it, many webmasters use an .htaccess file to make sure the site works both ways, but only shows up one way consistently.

I believe it would cause issues with SSL certificates and security validations. In most cases www. Is still required and generally better practise as it affects SEO and sitemapping a little, certain extensions will not register in the sitemap if it's from a non-www. domain.

If u want to use non-www. Just have it forward to the full domain but don't build on it.

I just checked my site through a backlink checker and it shows over 600 more backlinks with the www. version of my url then without it.

If you do not have access to your htaccess file, you may like to use the 301 redirect codes instead. It will forward all users, including spiders, to your main site.

I'm quite an SEO guy, so yeah, any inbound links to your www. site can be passed on to your main site (without the www) if you use this redirection, and vice versa.

Damn, do ask if you do not understand above. XD

epichouse said:

If you do not have access to your htaccess file, you may like to use the 301 redirect codes instead. It will forward all users, including spiders, to your main site.

I'm quite an SEO guy, so yeah, any inbound links to your www. site can be passed on to your main site (without the www) if you use this redirection, and vice versa.

Damn, do ask if you do not understand above. XD

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Yeah there's quite a bit to get your head around but its fairly simple basic steps once you understand how it works. It's good practise to get familiar, after all, you of all people should know how the strings pull behind your website.

vadan said:

I believe it would cause issues with SSL certificates and security validations. In most cases www. Is still required and generally better practise as it affects SEO and sitemapping a little, certain extensions will not register in the sitemap if it's from a non-www. domain.

If u want to use non-www. Just have it forward to the full domain but don't build on it.

Click to expand...

It doesn't effect SSL at all as long as you buy the SSL certificate for the right address.

It doesn't effect SEO at all...many sites have dropped the www with no issues. www. is deprecated.

I believe there is a section in Google Webmaster tools that will allow you to tell Google which version of a page (with or without the www) you prefer to avoid duplicate content issues. Google refers to this as URL canonicalization (preferred) issues. Its a simple form that you submit to tell them your preference.