The debate between using “www” versus “non-www” in a website’s URL is a common one. The recommended course of action is outlined on this page.
So, tell me, what exactly are domain names?
The domain name is the first part of a URL after the protocol prefix (http:// or https://). The document can be found on a server that is hosting the domain name in question.
While physical servers do exist, virtual servers allow multiple instances of software to share a single computer. Alternatively, multiple computers could manage a single server, working together to generate the solution or distribute the workload uniformly. The most important fact is that each domain name only refers to a single server.
Do I really have to decide between the two for my website? Can i use the non-www apex domain and www subdomain at the same time?
Yes and Yes
Yes, you should ideally pick one and commit to it wholeheartedly. It is up to you to decide which one serves as your canonical location, but once you do, you should stick with it. Your site’s user experience and its ranking in search results will both improve as a result. This includes always connecting to the selected domain (which shouldn’t be hard if you’re using relative URLs in your website) and always sharing links (through email/social networks, etc.) to the same domain.
Yes, you can have two of them. Whatever you decide to use as the canonical domain, just be consistent and coherent about it. The canonical name is the preferred and official URL. It should be used for all absolute links. Nevertheless, the other domain can be operational at the same time: Both the canonical and non-canonical domains can continue to function and serve the anticipated content if the appropriate HTTP methods are used to make it apparent to users and search engines which domain should be used as the main domain.
Pick one of your domains to be the authoritative one. Please find below two methods to maintain functionality in the non-canonical domain.
Resolving the dispute
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