Always Use WWW

Posted by Paul on September 11, 2015

You may have wondered whether it's best to include the www. in your domain name, what's best for your customers and what's best for SEO. For example it's possible to link to antropy.co.uk or www.antropy.co.uk - which should you do?

Because of Google's duplicate content rules, you really can't choose both, one should definitely redirect to the other with a permantent 301 redirect. While it's essentially a matter of opinion, and it became trendy in web developer circles to leave off the www for a short while, I'd suggest that you always use the www prefix.

Here's why:

  • Everyone still thinks of websites as "www dot something dot com".
  • If you leave it off, in some situations customers will have to type the "http://" - a bit of a finger-full!
  • Most of the big Internet companies use it such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Reddit etc. although Twitter tend to leave it off.
  • As long as you have the non-www version redirected properly, you can safely put either the www or non-www version on printed material and your customers will get to the right place.

What do you think? Do you prefer the www or non-www? Let us know in the comments!

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