Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Moving site from www to non www and also hosting to vps what will be the effect?
- 
					
					
					
					
 Hi SEO gurus, 
 I am trying to move my site from shared hosting to VPS hosting and also moving from www to non www version.
 What is the best possible way to avoid any issue and without losing the backlinks.
 Is it good or bad to do? URL: https://buylikesservices.com/
- 
					
					
					
					
 
- 
					
					
					
					
 Private hosting is better but it comes more expensive 
- 
					
					
					
					
 I have a website The Tourist Spot, earlier it was indexed with a non-www version but later I got it redirected to the www version. But when check my indexed pages on google, I find that I have both versions of the website indexed. Now I want to remove the non-www version. I tried to remove using the console but there was a notification that if I submit to delete page then all versions will be removed from google for the next 6 months. Now I need help to remove/deindex the non-www version. Anyone help me, please? 
- 
					
					
					
					
 To have a unique domain structure, you should redirect www to nonwww using 301 redirect as other members said too. And regarding changing your webhosting, the best way is to migrate your website content at first and when everything was ready at your new hosting, then change nameservers of your domain through the control panel of your domain, In this case your website faces least downtime. Changing hosting only changes the IP of your website and search engines understand it and its a normal procedure for almost all websites to change their webhosting. So only try to do it with lowest possible downtime. 
- 
					
					
					
					
 Why take the risk? Having your site load with the www doesn't hurt you. It's not as if the site will perform better without the www and if your site is configured properly your site will load no matter how you have that part of it set. Google views www.domain.com as a different site from domain.com. You can mitgiate your risk by doing 301 redirects from your www site to your non www but there is always going to be some amount of risk and the potential to see a temporary dip while Google figures out what just happened. Not sure I see enough benefit in making the move to warrant changing it. 
- 
					
					
					
					
 @seoblogs61 Hey, sorry for the super slow reply. Hosting shouldn't matter unless it changes the URLs (any further than you're deliberately changing them). Moving from www to non www means you need to make sure there is a 1:1 mapping of old to new URLs as 301 redirects. This may be possible using a server config rule. Be aware that any URL migration comes with SEO risks. The 301 redirects in theory will carry across most of the value of your backlinks, but there may be delays in Google understanding the new relationship, or a slight dilution, or some technical hitch which causes some URLs to not be caught by your rule. 
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
- 
		
		Moz ToolsChat with the community about the Moz tools. 
- 
		
		SEO TacticsDiscuss the SEO process with fellow marketers 
- 
		
		CommunityDiscuss industry events, jobs, and news! 
- 
		
		Digital MarketingChat about tactics outside of SEO 
- 
		
		Research & TrendsDive into research and trends in the search industry. 
- 
		
		SupportConnect on product support and feature requests. 
Related Questions
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Can access my site using www
 Hello, when I try to access my website using www i would like it to redirect to non www but instead it shows a sal error message. On-Page Optimization | | Voopoo2
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Will changing category URLs on site hurt SEO?
 Hi Moz Community, We're looking to replace some URLs on our Wordpress site and I want to make sure we won't hurt our SEO with the changes. The site is lushpalm.com When we originally launched our site we created pages (which are linked to in our main menu) to essentially display our categories. We did this as a workaround because we didn’t like the URL to have the word “category” in it. Now we would like to make some changes and we want to make sure we’re not going to hurt our SEO in any way by accidentally duplicating content or otherwise. We want to fix our structure and now link to our category pages from our main menu, BUT we want to change the URL of the category page so that it doesn’t have “category” in it, essentially renaming it the name of the page currently linked to in our main menu. So basically, the category lushpalm.com/category/surf-trips, would be renamed with the URL lushpalm.com/surf-trips and the current page that is at lushpalm.com/surf-trips would be therefore replaced. My questions are: If we did this, would that mean that the previous “lushpalm.com/category/surf-trips” would cease to exist? Or is there some imprint of that out on the web? And if it is then would it re-direct to the new page? Would replacing the current page URL with a category hurt our current SEO in any way? Would this change cause any duplicate pages somehow? Thanks so much for your help! Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TaraLP1
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Moving html site to wordpress and 301 redirect from index.htm to index.php or just www.example.com
 I found page duplicate content when using Moz crawl tool, see below. http://www.example.com Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gozmoz
 Page Authority 40
 Linking Root Domains 31
 External Link Count 138
 Internal Link Count 18
 Status Code 200
 1 duplicate http://www.example.com/index.htm
 Page Authority 19
 Linking Root Domains 1
 External Link Count 0
 Internal Link Count 15
 Status Code 200
 1 duplicate I have recently transfered my old html site to wordpress.
 To keep the urls the same I am using a plugin which appends .htm at the end of each page. My old site home page was index.htm. I have created index.htm in wordpress as well but now there is a conflict of duplicate content. I am using latest post as my home page which is index.php Question 1.
 Should I also use redirect 301 im htaccess file to transfer index.htm page authority (19) to www.example.com If yes, do I use
 Redirect 301 /index.htm http://www.example.com/index.php
 or
 Redirect 301 /index.htm http://www.example.com Question 2
 Should I change my "Home" menu link to http://www.example.com instead of http://www.example.com/index.htm that would fix the duplicate content, as indx.htm does not exist anymore. Is there a better option? Thanks0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		6 .htaccess Rewrites: Remove index.html, Remove .html, Force non-www, Force Trailing Slash
 i've to give some information about my website Environment 1. i have static webpage in the root. 2. Wordpress installed in sub-dictionary www.domain.com/blog/ 3. I have two .htaccess , one in the root and one in the wordpress Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NeatIT
 folder. i want to www to non on all URLs Remove index.html from url Remove all .html extension / Re-direct 301 to url
 without .html extension Add trailing slash to the static webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash Force trailing slash to the Wordpress Webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash Some examples domain.tld/index.html >> domain.tld/ domain.tld/file.html >> domain.tld/file/ domain.tld/file.html/ >> domain.tld/file/ domain.tld/wordpress/post-name >> domain.tld/wordpress/post-name/ My code in ROOT htaccess is <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews RewriteEngine On
 RewriteBase / #removing trailing slash
 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
 RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ $1 [R=301,L] #www to non
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(([a-z0-9_]+.)?domain.com)$ [NC]
 RewriteRule .? http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] #html
 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
 RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L] #index redirect
 RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
 RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://domain.com/ [R=301,L]
 RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} .html
 RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /$1 [R=301,L]</ifmodule> The above code do 1. redirect www to non-www
 2. Remove trailing slash at the end (if exists)
 3. Remove index.html
 4. Remove all .html
 5. Redirect 301 to filename but doesn't add trailing slash at the end0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Splitting and moving site to two domains - How to redirect
 I have a client who is going to split their retail and wholesale business and rebrand the retail biz. So let’s say they are going to move everything from currentdomain.com to either retaildomain.com or wholesaledomain.com. The most important business for them is the retail site, so they want to pass on as much ranking power as they can from currentdomain.com to retaildomain.com. I see two choices here: We can 301 redirect all of currentdomain.com to retaildomain.com, and then redirect any wholesale pages to wholesaledomain.com. The advantage is that we can use GSC’s change of address tool to report the change to Google. The downside is that there is a redirect chain (2 hops) to wholesaledomain.com. Would this confuse Google? Or we can 301 redirect page by page from currentdomain.com to the appropriate page on either new site. This means no redirect chains but it also means that we can’t use GSC’s change of address tool. Which would you do and why? And is there another option that I'm missing? I appreciate any insights you can share. Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rich.owings1
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Will obfuscating HTML have a bad effect on my ranking?
 I would like to obfuscate my HTML so that people do not see that I used a Template on my site. Does obfuscating HTML have a bad effect on the ranking in google? Thanks! Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RWW0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Merging Niche Site
 I posted a question about this a while ago, but still haven't pulled the trigger. I have a main site (bobsclothing.com). I also have a EM niche site (i.e shirtsmall.com). It would be more efficient for me to merge these site, because: I would have to manage content, promos, etc. on a single site. In other words, I can focus efforts on 1 site. If I am writing content, I don't have to split the work. I don't have to worry about duplicate content. Right now, if I enter a product URL into copyscape, the other sites is returned for many products. What makes me apprehensive are: The niche site actually ranks for more keywords than the main site, although it has lower revenue. Slightly lower PA, and DA. Niche site ranks top 20 for a profitable keyword that has about 1300 exact match searches. If you include the longer tail versions of the keyword it would be more. If I merge these sites, and do proper 301s (product to product, category to category) how likely is it that main site will still rank for that keyword? Am I likely to end up with a site that has stronger DA? Am I better off keeping the niche site and just focusing content efforts on the few keywords that it can rank well for? I appreciate any advice. If someone has done this, please share your experience. TIA Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Disavow Tool - WWW or Not?
 Hi All, Just a quick question ... A shady domain linking to my website is indexed in Google for both example.com and www.example.com. If I wan't to disavow the entire domain, do I need to submit both: domain:www.example.com domain:example.com or just: domain:example.com Cheers! Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carlos-R0
 
			
		 
				
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				