Which one should I choose?
Technically www and non-www URLs are different and that it could hurt your SEO if you keep both around.
For example, the domains http://non-prefix.com and http://www.prefix.com are technically different. (note the “www” in one but not the other)
However, if you check on either, they redirect to the same place, which is a good thing. It helps Google and other search engines to only index one and to not split results.
This article will help you how to redirect your non-www URLs to www, or vice-versa, using .htaccess.
You can add the following code to your .htaccess file, if you want to redirect all non-www requests to your site to the www version.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]
This will redirect any requests to http://non-prefix.com and http://www.prefix.com.
There are several benefits from doing that:
- To avoid duplicate content in Google
- To avoid the possibility of split page rank or split link popularity.
- It’s nicer, and more consistent.
