Do I need to set Preferred domain when the non-www redirects to www version?

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Hi mozzers,

Not sure if I should setup preferred domain when the non www version redirects to the www version? if yes why?

Thanks!

[FedeEinhorn]

There's no "must" here, you can do it if you want. But as long as you are redirecting ALL non-www to the www version of it, you have nothing to worry about.

I redirect the non-www to the www but I set that up anyway, just in case

[ThompsonPaul]

I call this a "belt & suspenders" situation, Taysir. If you don't want your pants to fall down, you put on a belt. If you want to be really, really sure your pants can't fall down, you put on a belt and then wear suspenders as well

The critical item is to have the correct 301 canonical redirection to a single version of your URL as you have done. Doing it this way communicates that information to all the search engines. (Setting a preferred domain in Google Webmaster tools only communicates to Google, not Bing or others.)

That said, since it only takes a few minutes to add the preferred domain settings in both Bing and Google Webmaster Tools, there's really no reason not to do it as well, as you're just giving yet another indication to back up what you redirect is telling them.

The "preferred domain" setting in GWT is primarily there to help out webmasters who are blocked by their hosting from creating the correct redirect rules. But as I say, no harm in being really, really sure

Does that make sense?

Paul

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Thank you Guys

Appreciate your help!