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1. lovboa
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago #

   I recently created a new website pilotincanada.com.

   As you can see, there is no www. This is the first website I've ever created. I thought I should mention that as I realize this could be a fairly newbie question.

   When I search Google for my site, it is indexed for the non-www url.
   When I try and search site:http://www.pilotincanada.com, google does not have it indexed.

   I was confused so I decided to try it out with other more popular niche sites. For them, it seems to be opposite. Both URLs seem to be indexed but, but when I search google for non-www, it shows the www indexed sites.
   (For me, searching site:pilotincanada.com on Google shows non-www indexed sites. When I search site:www.pilotincanada.com, there are no pages indexed.)

   Could somebody explain this a little bit for me? How did they index their site on google so that both searches show up for their site?

   Would changing my URL to www instead of just pilotincanada.com solve the problem?
   Would doing so help improve SEO?

   I'm very lost and would really appreciate some help.

2. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 10 months ago #

   The difference is length and preference. There's no SEO benefit either way.

3. lovboa
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago #

   Wow thank you for such a quick reply.

   How bout in Google search?
   When I search for site:www.pilotincanada.com it does not show any pages.

   When I search site:pilotincanada.com it shows my pages.

   Other people's niche sites seem to show up for both searches.

4. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 10 months ago #

   That's because http://www.pilotincanada.com redirects to pilotincanada.com and no one links to the www version :)

   I get the same thing for my sites, and it's as expected.

5. lovboa
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago #

   Ah I see.

   I guess my question now is...how can I make it so that google indexes both those versions- with www and without?

   It seems to be what the top niche sites have.

   Also, it is bad that it actually redirects to pilotincanada.com/
   ---with the / at the end?

   I dont even know why it does this...it's just been that way since the beginning

6. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 10 months ago #

   The trailing slash doesn't matter.

   I wouldn't worry about the indexing, especially if you make a Google Webmaster account and tell it to index both www and non-www but that you give preference to non. It all sorts out.

   Remember, people aren't searching for http://www.domain.com or even domain.com all the time. They'll search for 'how to become a pilot in canada' :) So long as it all redirects, you're fine.

7. jwind
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago #

   Common practice to 301 redirect to www to non www or vise versa... In fact, it's recommended as google actually treats them as two separate domains.

8. riverwire
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago #

   You should have one or the other , not both. Other wise known as the canonical domain it helps google understand what your preferred choice is, allowing both www and non www indexed can result in indexing problems and possibly even Duplicate content issues , as stated above it can be seen as two separate domains.

   So as long as you choose one of them you will be perfectly fine.

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