Non WWW. versus WWW. versions, current best practice ?

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

Im increasingly seeing sites not using the www., but understand from various sources including seomoz that best practice is to be on the www. with the non www version 301'd to the www version.

Since alot of sites are clearly doing this the other way round now is that better practice or the former still best ?

I appreciate that non www version gives you 3 more characters for url's but apart from that is there any benefit over the www. version ?

Cheers

Dan

[inlinear]

I take it from a practical point of view: If in doubt, leave it out : ), I took the www. away from all of my sites because it seems a relict from the beginning of the WWW and just makes the domain unnecessarily longer (alos when advertising it) So do not encounter any Problem with it. Sure, people can access my site via www. but will be redirected to the non-WWW address.

But I am curious if this can have any disadvantage, as well. Here is may be a helpful link: http://no-www.org/

best regards,
Holger

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks for your reply & the link Holger !

Still interested in comments from others too re which is best practice ?

Cheers

Dan

[irvingw]

makes no difference either way for SEO, just be consistent with internal and external linking - choose one way and stick to it.

also. even if your site redirects to www you can still promote your site as mysite.com and not www..mysite.com so makes no difference for promoting.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Many thanks too Irving !!

Anyone know what the function of preferred domain display option in GWT is, since doing either of the above makes it display as you would want anyway ?

Cheers

Dan

[irvingw]

helps keep the non www version from getting indexed i believe even if you don't have the proper non www to www redirect in place.