{"id":512,"date":"2013-07-15T17:32:43","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T00:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/?p=512"},"modified":"2024-01-29T14:39:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T22:39:31","slug":"www-or-no-www-that-is-the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/512\/www-or-no-www-that-is-the-question\/","title":{"rendered":"WWW or no WWW – That is the question"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n \"www\n <\/picture>\n <\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n

We are talking about whether your website is “www.your-website.com” or just “your-website.com” .\u00a0 You want your website to be accessible both ways of course, whether the user types in the “www” or not (most people won’t take the extra time to type what’s not necessary right?).\u00a0 You would lose traffic if you didn’t make your website accessible both ways.\u00a0 But you actually want your website to recognize one version as “the one”, and redirect the other to it.<\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 SEO – search engine optimization & search engine ranking.\u00a0 You want all the traffic you get for a page and for your website to be recognized as one – not divide your popularity in two for no reason, when it’s the same page\/the same content.\u00a0 Also, it is just better practice and will get rid of potential problems and issues in terms of interpreting and keeping track of your website statistics as you develop, manage, and grow your website.<\/p>\n

Which version to choose as “the one”?\u00a0 We go with the “www” version as “the one” and redirect to that.\u00a0 The reason is that “www” preceding your domain name is an indicator to most that this is a website, versus an email address, or something else.\u00a0 You see\u00a0“www…” on tv commercials and online ads as well, just for this reason.<\/p>\n

How to redirect your website to use “www”<\/h2>\n

If you are using UltimateWB to design, create, and manage your website, the code to automatically redirect users to the “www” version of your website is provided in your .htaccess file – just follow the instructions there to activate it.\u00a0 We do like to share, so here’s the code for anyone else that hasn’t switched to UltimateWB yet!<\/p>\n

In your .htaccess file add the following code.\u00a0 If you don’t have a .htaccess file, open notepad or a similar program, copy\/paste this code, and save the file as .htaccess (type any, not “.txt”, utf-8).\u00a0 Then upload the file to your server.<\/p>\n

\n

#start the rewrite engine
Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase \/<\/p>\n

# replace “ultimatewb.com” with your domain name
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www. [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/$1 [R=301,L,QSA]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

FYI: “R=301” means it’s a permanent redirect, so search engines will index your pages as “www…..”.\u00a0 “L” means that if the rewrite condition applies, do just this rewrite rule for it.\u00a0 And the “QSA” carries over any variables passed with the url string.\u00a0 But all you have to do to the code is replace “ultimatewb.com” with your domain name.<\/p>\n

Do you “www” too?<\/p>\n

Are you ready to design & build your own website? Learn more about\u00a0UltimateWB<\/a>! We also offer\u00a0web design packages<\/a>\u00a0if you would like your website designed and built for you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are talking about whether your website is “www.your-website.com” or just “your-website.com” .\u00a0 You want your website to be accessible both ways of course, whether the user types in the “www” or not (most people won’t take the extra time … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[345,3,4],"tags":[375,405,235,404,403,400,10,12,11,401,402],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-domain-names","category-general","category-search-engine-optimization-seo","tag-htaccess","tag-301-redirect","tag-domain-name","tag-htaccess-sample-code","tag-redirect-sample-code","tag-redirect-to-www","tag-search-engine-optimization","tag-search-engine-ranking","tag-seo","tag-website-url","tag-www-vs-no-www"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4552,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions\/4552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatewb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}