Very different PA for 2 versions of the same domain homepage - how to fix pls?

[CamperConnect14]

Hi Mozzers,

I have a newish website and have been monitoring the DA and PA.

http://www.domain.com has a PA of just 21

http://domain.com has a PA of 32.

Both have completely different backlinks showing up. Id really like the PA of 31 as the h.page isn't ranking at all yet.

ANy advice on this would be great thank you. And sorry if it's really basic stuff for many of you!

Best, James

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Hi James

What would be best is making sure that both domain.com and www.domain.com come back to the same page through a redirect in your server settings. By doing that you'll make sure they end up being the same page and they'll also have the same Page Authority in the future.

[Ria_]

To add to this, and briefly explain why it's bad practice to have two versions of the same page available: basically, having the two versions will negatively affect either of them ranking due to the duplicate content. They are cannibalising each other. There should only ever be one URL version of any page on the website. So you will also want to redirect /index.html or /index.php to your preferred homepage URL also. And make sure that you either redirect non-www to www or vice versa sitewide - not just on the homepage.

[CamperConnect14]

Thanks for your answers!  the developers confirmed that the non www is being redirected to the www.

Any ideas why MOZ shows a different PA for the 2 pages? Thanks

[Ria_]

Well, it could be down to how the homepage is linked. For example, if there are more links going to the www version of the webpage than the non-www version, then the www version will most likely have a higher PA.

EDIT: Another thing, if you redirect the non-www to the www, most of the "page authority" will "flow" through the redirect so the main URL version will benefit from the combined links to www and non-www, if that makes sense.

[CamperConnect14]

Thanks again for answering. One version does seem to have better links. Perhaps Moz will eventually see them as the same domain as the redirect has only been in place for about 1 month.

I may ask the developers to verify and set the preferred domain also.

Thank you!