Should my site use www or non-www?

www vs non-www, explained

To a search engine, https://example.com/pricing and https://www.example.com/pricing are different URLs that happen to show the same page. If both load, Google has to choose a canonical for every page on your site, and links and signals may be split between the two versions. That's a canonicalization problem, not a ranking preference.

Google doesn't favor either one. The technical trade-offs are about infrastructure: some DNS providers can't point a bare domain at a CDN hostname without special records, and cookies set on a bare domain are sent to all subdomains. Most modern hosts handle both, so pick whichever looks better to you.

Then make it consistent everywhere. Redirect the other version with a single permanent redirect, straight to the matching path, not to the homepage. Use the chosen version in canonical tags, internal links, the sitemap, hreflang, Open Graph URLs and structured data. In Search Console, a Domain property covers both versions and all protocols, so you see all your data in one place.

Check the combinations. http://example.com, http://www.example.com and https://www.example.com should each reach the final URL in one hop, not through a chain. Test a deep page as well as the homepage, because some hosts only redirect the root and leave every other path live on both hostnames. Once it's right, it rarely needs touching again.

Why it matters for founders

It's a five-minute decision that prevents months of split signals. New sites often launch with both versions live because the host set up both by default.

Example

You choose the bare domain. www.example.com/blog/post now 308s straight to example.com/blog/post, and your canonical tags, sitemap and internal links all use https://example.com.

Common mistakes

• Leaving both versions live with no redirect.
• Redirecting www to the homepage instead of the matching path.
• Canonical tags that use the other version from your redirects.
• Chaining http → https → www in several hops.