Choosing a www vs non-www domain name: pros, cons, and recommendations

Do you typically include www when typing a website’s name into a browser’s address bar? Can you tell whether Wikipedia, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter use www or not? Don’t worry if you can’t because you aren’t alone in this.

Most people aren’t aware that you can visit two different URL versions of the same website. For example, if you’re a typical user on Facebook and visit www.facebook.com or facebook.com, you will be taken to the same social media feed. For website owners, developers, and SEOs, this seemingly small detail can have major technical implications.

Below, we’ll explain the benefits of keeping www in your site name (even though it’s no longer mandatory.) We’ll also show you how to tell Google (and other search engines) which version of your site to prioritize, and then look into potential canonical issues from using www vs non-www.

Whether you go with www or non-www route, setting up your site properly is key to building a strong foundation for SEO growth.

What are the www and non-www domain prefixes?

The difference between www and non-www domains is straightforward. When you see a website address like www.mysite.com, that’s a www domain. When the www part is missing, like in mysite.com, that’s a non-www domain.

Both types work fine for websites today. The www prefix is just an old habit from the early Internet days. It was used to show that you’re accessing a website rather than other Internet services. This is no longer necessary.

Technically, both options work equally well. Modern web servers can handle either without issues. However, there are still some differences to consider, which we’ll cover in the following sections.

The origin of www prefix: past and present

Since popular web browsers like Google Chrome and Safari now hide the www part of URLs, it’s easy to overlook the presence of the “www” prefix in the names of popular websites. Amazon is www, but if you type amazon.com instead of www.amazon.com into the search bar, you can still enjoy the convenience of prime delivery for your new pair of sneakers.

In the early days of the Internet, www was an essential domain name component. With no hosting providers, every company managed its own servers, and prefixes were used to differentiate between various servers. Files stored on the www server were intended to be shared on the web, and the website name would be www.example.com. Ftp servers were used to share files within the network, mail servers were used to handle email delivery, and the list goes on. Even today, you may come across terms like a fully-qualified domain name (full domain name with a prefix) and root domain, but with no prefix. An important change is that now, both a fully-qualified domain (www.example.com) and a root domain (example.com) connected to the same IP address of a single server will work properly.

Why is www vs non-www important for SEO?

Does choosing www or non-www affect SEO? In short, Google and other search engines don’t care. What matters is how you let them know your preferred version—your canonical URL.

Since search engines treat www and non-www site versions as two separate websites, you should explicitly communicate to search engines which version of your site to crawl and index, and which to ignore. If you don’t specify your preferred version, both WWW and non-www versions will be indexed, competing against each other in search results. This can hurt your rankings for both.

Potential SEO issues with www and non-www

Duplicate content

Search engines value unique content. Multiple pages with identical or almost identical content are considered duplicates. In the case of www and non-www duplicates, Google does its best to determine which version to prioritize, but it’s best to use redirects or canonical tags to specify your preference. More on that later.

Wasted crawling budget

Search engines have a limited crawling capacity. Not specifying your preferred site version forces them to crawl each page twice. This means search engines may exhaust their crawling budget before fully scanning each of your site’s most important pages. 

Diluted backlink value

High-quality backlinks can significantly boost your rankings, provided that they point to the right site version. Unless you set up a redirect or use a canonical tag, backlinks pointing to the www version of your site will only bring value to that version, while non-www pages will only benefit from backlinks pointing to the respective non-www URLs.

Pros & cons of www and non-www

Being undecided about using www or not is a bad SEO decision. Here’s a quick comparison table highlighting the pros and cons of www and non-www domains. It will help you decide the best option for you.

www vs non-www best practices 

Redirect or canonical tag: Indicate your preferred site version

To indicate your preferred domain name, choose between using a server-side 301 redirect or adding a canonical tag. Both options are easy to implement, and most modern CMSs have built-in tools that make setting up redirects and canonical tags simple. 

From the user perspective, there is a distinction between using 301 redirects and rel=canonical tags. With rel=canonical tags, the site URL displayed in the browser’s address bar and history doesn’t change. For example, if a user tries to access ‘example.com’, they will see the exact URL in the address bar even if www.example.com is your canonical variation. But since popular web browsers skip www these days, users won’t notice the difference.

Now, let’s discuss each option in more detail.

Setting up a 301 redirect

The most common, SEO-friendly approach would be to set up server-side 301 redirects. This involves editing the .htaccess file at the server level. Note that search engines recognize redirect instructions as mandatory.  

For website visitors, redirects from www to non-www or vice versa work as follows:

Whenever a user enters the non-canonical version of your domain name in the address bar and sends a request to your site’s server, the server responds with a 301 redirect to the browser. This automatically redirects the user to the ‘proper’ canonical equivalent of the page. If, for example, your preferred site version is www.example.com and a user types example.com/page01 in the search bar, they will end up on www.example.com/page01.

The same logic applies to search engine bots that crawl and index your site. They won’t be able to access the non-canonical version of your domain, which means that Google and other search engines will successfully index the correct version of your site.

Redirects are also good at passing link juice, which means that your www site version will benefit from backlinks pointing to the corresponding non-www pages.

You can set up a 301 directly via the .htaccess file (located in your website’s root folder) and add a few lines of code to it.

If you’ve chosen the non-www version and want to redirect users and bots from the www-version, add the following lines of code:

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

If your preferred version is www.example.com, and you need to redirect from non-www to www, add these lines of code:

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

Depending on your CMS, you can set everything up by checking the necessary fields in the CMS settings. You can also use a plugin.

Adding canonical tags to your site pages

If you have no technical means to set up 301 redirects, you can add the rel=canonical <link> tag to the HTML code of all pages of your non-preferred site version. Canonical tags tell search engines which page (among similar pages) is the main one. They ensure it is indexed and ranked while disregarding the others.

While canonical tags serve as recommendations rather than strict instructions, they aren’t as reliable as 301 redirects. Based on other signals such as sitemaps, or internal and external links, it may choose different canonical pages than those specified through canonical tags.

Here’s how to implement rel=canonical tags. Let’s assume your preferred version is www.example.com. To indicate that https://www.example.com/page01 is your preferred page version, add the following line of code to the <head> section of https://example.com/page01 HTML code:

<link href="https://www.example.com/page01" rel="canonical">

Starting from WordPress 2.9 or higher, rel=canonical tags are automatically added to all of the pages on your website. You don’t need to take additional manual actions. The tags will either point to the www or non-www versions of your website depending on the one you specified as your WordPress Address (URL) in WordPress’sgeneral settings.

Keep an eye on your redirects and canonicals setup

After deciding whether to use www or non-www and using either of the two methods above to mark your preferred version as canonical, your next step is to check if everything went well. Tools like SE Ranking’s Website Audit can help tremendously. Monitoring your website’s health regularly ensures no technical bugs jeopardize your SEO growth. 

You can start SE Ranking’s 14-day free trial to check if everything is set up properly. The system will automatically audit your website once you add your project.

The Content section of the Issue Report will notify you if something goes wrong. This includes indications of potential issues with your redirects or instances where multiple canonical tags are added to the same page. 

In the Crawling & Indexing section of the report, you’ll see if any of your canonical URLs aren’t functioning properly. This includes situations where the URLs are redirected to other destinations (3xx status codes), have been deleted (4xx status codes), or are temporarily unavailable due to server errors (5xx status codes.) Each issue in the report comes with fix tips and a list of affected pages.

If you used canonical tags to indicate your preferred site version, regularly check which pages Google considers canonical. You can do this manually with Google Search Console or SE Ranking’s Rank Tracker. Refer to this guide to learn how.

Use www or non-www consistently

Consistency is key, and your www or non-www URL variations are no exception. Whichever version you choose, stick to it. For example, if you keep www, all your Sitemap URLs, internal links, and backlinks must also remain www. 

Search engines use your Sitemap as a guide to identify which pages to crawl and index. Include the correct URL variations in your sitemap to avoid sending mixed signals to Google, especially if you’re using canonical tags to specify your canonical (or preferred) domain. Fortunately, SE Ranking’s Website Audit pings you if you miss something.

The same applies to internal links, which send powerful signals to Google about your most important pages. Internal links also pass link juice, so make sure you’re using the correct URLs to distribute it wisely. The Website Audit’s Found Links section includes a complete list of your internal links. Use filters to check which links use a non-canonical URL variation. In the example below,  we will search for non-www URLs since the website’s preferred version is www.

Whenever possible, control the URL variations used by sites linking to you. If your canonical domain is www, your backlinks should include this prefix. The same goes for backlinks from affiliate websites. Since you have more control over these, work with your business partners to ensure they use the proper URL variations. 

You should also pay attention to social media links. While they don’t strengthen your backlink profile, they have a partial effect on your SEO rankings. 

To get a complete list of your website’s backlinks, you can use SE Ranking’s Backlink Checker. Use filters to find backlinks pointing to non-canonical URLs. The website in the example below is www, but it has plenty of backlinks pointing to non-www page variations. If any of these backlinks are especially valuable, reach out to linking sites and ask them to update the URLs of those backlinks.

The bottom line is that you and your partners must be consistent with the URL variations you use. Search engines will appreciate your efforts and reward you with better rankings.

www or non-www: best use cases

Keeping or skipping www makes no big difference to SEO, but each option has its benefits. The  www option has technical benefits and keeping www can even be a necessity. Non-www is generally considered to be better for branding. 

Now, let’s break it down and explore the best use cases to understand each version better.

www for handling loads of traffic

We mentioned big name websites like Wikipedia, Amazon, and Facebook earlier on in this article. Each of these are www because they use content delivery networks (CDN). This makes it possible for them to quickly and securely deliver content to millions of users. 

What does this have to do with www or no www?

When opting for the non-www approach, it is common to map both the root domain and hostname to the same IP address provided by your hosting provider. This is achieved through an A-type record. The DNS record would appear as follows:

example.com. IN A 192.0.2.0 
www.example.com. IN A 192.0.2.0

According to DNS specifications, root domains should always point to an IP address. Using CDNs can be tricky because you’ll need to point your website to a CDN domain instead of an IP address. 

Theoretically, you can map your domain to both an IP address using an A-type record and a CDN domain using a CNAME record. Conversely, another DNS rule states a CNAME record cannot co-exist with other resource record types. If you add both records, the A-type record pointing to the IP address will be ignored, violating the first rule. 

Pointing to a CDN domain is not possible due to the nature of DNS requests. This configuration results in unexpected errors and prevents your website from functioning properly.

If you opt for the www version of your website, you won’t have any problems complying with DNS rules. You would create a CNAME record for the www site, mapping it to a CDN of your choice. You would also add an A record for your root domain, directing it to your website’s IP address.

www.yourdomain.com.  CNAME  somecdn.com.
yourdomain.com.      A      192.0.2.1

Although some DNS providers like Cloudflare, DNS Made Easy, and DNSSimple provide workarounds for overcoming DNS restrictions, relying on them limits your choice of DNS providers. Users might also face a slower experience if they’re routed to a distant CDN node.

www for taming website cookies

In addition to DNS limitations, choosing a root domain as canonical raises concerns about cookies. In modern browsers, the main domain’s cookies are automatically transmitted to subdomains. This means that if you set cookies for example.com, they will also be sent to static.example.com, email.example.com, etc. 

Here’s why this is bad. 

• The first issue is that it hurts user experience. Bigger websites typically store static content (images, videos, JavaScript, and CSS files) on a subdomain to offload the main server and handle dynamic requests efficiently. But if the website runs as the root domain, cookies will still be sent from example.com to static.example.com, resulting in slower access to static content and compromising website performance. Storing static content on a separate domain is the only way to prevent this bandwidth waste. Twitter, for example, adopts a non-www approach and hosts their static content on a0.twimg.com as a solution to this problem.
• The second problem involves security risks. A cookie is issued whenever you log into your website’s CMS. And when you visit mail.example.com or cdn.example.com, the cookie is sent to these subdomains, and can then be read by server administrators. This poses a security risk because administrators can copy the cookie and use it to log into your corporate CMS. One way to mitigate this risk is to implement IP restriction, allowing access to your website only from specific IP addresses within your corporate network. 

If you want to optimize your website’s speed by hosting static content separately but don’t want to purchase a new domain, keep the www prefix in your preferred domain name. This will also prevent third parties from reading your website’s cookies. 

Non-www for branding and ease of use

The non-www version may be the better option if your website isn’t large enough to require a dedicated CDN or your subdomains don’t interfere with your cookies. Despite its technical limitations, non-www is still viable and has valuable workarounds. 

Here’s why you might consider this option. 

The non-www URL looks cleaner. It also rolls off the tongue more easily. As English author Douglas Adams once noted, it takes three times longer to pronounce the abbreviation www than simply saying “World Wide Web”. So, it’s no wonder broadcasters normally drop the www part when mentioning a website on-air. This is what most people do when saying the name of a website out loud.

Users who don’t remember the early days of the Internet typically skip the www part when typing domain names into the address bar. Even old-school users who still add www to the URL address won’t see it displayed in the address bar because browsers automatically hide it. In the future, www might become as outdated as steam trains in modern railways, used only on rare occasions.

A recurring SEO question: to www, or not to www

It might seem like a small decision to include or exclude the www prefix in your domain name, but it’s anything but. It can make big technical differences. Your choice of www vs non-www affects your business’s branding and scalability, so choose wisely based on your priorities and plans. After making your decision, mark your preferred version as canonical and stick with it. Although switching back and forth from www to non-www is possible from a technical standpoint, it won’t do your website’s SEO any good.

Written by

Svetlana Shchehel

Svetlana is the Head of Content at SE Ranking. Her interests span across digital marketing, SEO, and translation. She regularly shares her expertise on the SE Ranking blog and across various marketing media. Svetlana believes that complex notions can be explained in plain words and loves creating immersive stories. Svetlana spends most of her evening hours learning new languages, planning memorable trips, and petting her cat.