Www for main site and non www for integrated blog - is this a problem?

[Chammy]

Hi Mozzers

My client has their main site with www as the preferred version and utilises 301s for the non www version which is good.

For their integrated WP blog, they prefer the non www version, again utilising 301s.

So we have no duplicates, but is this different use of sub domains going to hurt SEO with regards to the links pointing in? ie do the links pointing into the blog benefit the main site or are we missing a trick and should change the blog to www?

Many thanks

Wendy

[Ron_McCabe]

You really need to integrate the blog to get the full benefit of the inbound links and associated traffic.  Non standard structures do tend to trip up the search engines so I try to stay within normal parameters.

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Chammy, to get the full value of the blog (and save yourself from headaches later on), you should integrate it into the main site in a subfolder. This will consolidate all of your content into a single site. It is easier and faster to build up the authority of one site than two, which is what you will have to do if you leave the blog on the root and the main site on the "www" subdomain.  That's my short answer. Hope it helps, and let me know if you have questions!

[Chammy]

Thanks Christy and Don

My clients blog is currently integrated into a subfolder. The current situation is:

www.mainsite.com - with 301 from non www version

mainsite.com/blog/ - with 301 going from www version

Are you saying this is not OK? Should they both be www or non www? Or should I not worry?

Will links going into the blog be helping the mainsite or are they working independently? As there is no duplication I think we are OK, but just wanted to check!

Many thanks

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Chammy, that is great that the blog is in the subfolder. Awesome. Now you need to decide whether to use the "www" or not for both the main site and blog. Either use www.mainsite.com with 301 redirect from non www version with www.mainsite.com/blog with 301 redirect from non www version OR mainsite.com with 301 redirect from www version and mainsite.com/blog with 301 redirect from www version.

The reason that it is best practice to redirect from the subdomain www to the root (or vice versa) is to prevent duplicate content and prevent domain authority from being split between two sites, as the search engines view www.mainsite.com and mainsite.com and separate sites. So if you keep things the way they are, your blog will not be on the same site as the main site, and you will lose out on the benefits of building a single, strong site -- not to mention the internal linking headaches that you will have!

So, to answer your questions: This is not okay. Yes, they should both be www or non www. And yes, you should worry ... but only if you don't do something.