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
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		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
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Adult Toys Sites
 Does anyone know of any changes SEOwise when running an adult toy site versus a normal eCommerce site? Is there any tips or suggestions that are worth knowing to achieve rankings faster? Thanks, Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | the-gate-films0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		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
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Redirecting non www site
 Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. I 100% agree with the redirecting of the non www domain name. After all we see so many times, especially in MOZ how the two different domains contain different links, different DA and of course different PA. So I have posed the question to our IT company, "How would we go about redirecting our non www domain to the www version?", "Where would we do that?", " we cant do the redirect on our webserver because the website is listed as an IP address, not a domain name, so would we do the redirect somewhere at GoDaddy?" who is currently maintain our DNS record So here is the response from IT: " I would setup a CNAME record in DNS (GoDaddy), such that no matter if you go to the bare domain, or the www, you end up in the same place. As for SEO, having a 301 redirect for your bare domain isn't necessary, because both the bare domain and the www are the same domain. 301 is a redirect for "permanently moved" and is common when you change domain names. Using the bare domain or the www are NOT DIFFERENT DOMAINS, so the 301 would not be accurate, and you'd be telling engines you've moved, when you haven't - which may negatively impact your rank. It sounds to me that IT is NOT recommending the redirect. How can this be? Or are we talking about two different things? Will the redirect cause the melt down as the IT company suggests? Or do they nut understand SEO? Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Davenport-Tractor0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Merging Sites: Will redirecting the old homepage to an internal page on the new site cause issues?
 I've ended up with two sites which have similar content (but not duplicate) and target similar keywords, rather than trying to maintain two sites I would like to merge the sites together. The old site is more of a traditional niche site and targets a particular set of keywords on its homepage, the new site is more of an authority site with a magazine type homepage and targets the same set of keywords from an internal page. My question is: Should I redirect the old site's homepage to the relevant internal page on the new website... Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lara_dar
 ...or should I redirect the old site's homepage to the new site's homepage? (the old site's homepage backlinks are a mixture of partial match keyword anchor text, naked URLs and branded anchor text) I am in two minds (a & b!) (a) Redirecting to the internal page would be great for ranking as there are some decent backlinks and the content is similar (b) But usually when you do a 301 redirect the homepage usually directs to the new homepage and some of the old site's links are related to the domain rather than the keyword (e.g. http://www.site.com) and some people will be looking for the site's homepage. What do you think? Your help is much appreciated (and hope this makes sense...!)0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Removed Site-wide links
 Hi there, I have recently removed quite a lot of site-wide links leaving the only link on homepage's of some websites, since doing this I have seen a dramatic drop on my keywords, going from position 2-3 to nowhere. Has anyone else experienced anything like this, should I expect to see a return on these keywords? Thanks Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Optimize a Classifieds Site
 Hi, I have a classifieds website and would like to optimize it. The issues/questions I have: A Classifieds site has, say, 500 cities. Is it better to create separate subdomains for each city (http://city_name.site.com) or subdirectory (http://site.com/city_name)? Now in each city, there will be say 50 categories. Now these 50 categories are common across all the cities. Hence, the layout and content will be the same with difference of latest ads from each city and name of the city and the urls pointing to each category in the relevant city. The site architecture of a classifieds site is highly prone to have major content which is not really a duplicate content. What is the best way to deal with this situation? I have been hit by Panda in April 2011 with traffic going down 50%. However, the traffic since then has been around same level. How to best handle the duplicate content penalty in case with site like a classifieds site. Cheers! Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ketan90
 
			
		 
				
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				