Forum Moderators: open
If you were *just* starting off all fresh in the big wide
world of websites, would you ask people to link to you as:
[example.com...]
or
[example.com...]
or
www.example.com
Personally I went with [example.com...]
First, www isn't really needed for today's web. It's a dated artifact of the 20th century's Internet.
Second, [example.com...] is 4 characters shorter than [example.com....] This conserves keystrokes, makes it easier to remember, makes it easier to say, and saves ink (if you print it).
You can use any of these. The important thing is to choose one format and stick to it. Make sure that your server is set up to correctly forward visitors to the proper format of your URL. Then standardize this in all your online and offline promotion materials.
Warning: damp daffodils can be dangerous if dipped in liquid nitrogen ;)
First, www isn't really needed for today's web. It's a dated artifact of the 20th century's Internet.
So, unless I hear to the contrary very soon, I'll ask others to link to me in this style:
[example.com...]
Thanks again.
One of my new clients had done what you propose. They quickly discovered that other sites who linked spontaneously (without any link request) added in the "www" anyway. This especially included spontaneous links on forums that their happy (non-webmaster) customers left.
Even though a redirect can make that address work for human traffic, the 301 caused a bit of chaos on the search engines - the site's rankings were not what they thought they should have been, given the number of backlinks. Some (even major) search engines treated the two addresses as two different (and duplicate?) pages, rather than just one page. So the power of the backlinks was split.
Because of that experience, I would suggest you use the "www" as your primary address. It seems less likely that spontaneous links would drop the "www" than add it.
This has happened to me twice now. Once in dmoz (believe it or not) and once in JoeAnt. It was a royal pain to get dmoz to change the link and JoeAnt never did.
So even though I agree that the url is shorter and easier to type, you might want to take into consideration the problems I had.
p.s. I still use the shortened version!
I would recommend always using the www to save search engine and 301 headaches.
I would also make sure that you have a 301 in place for the non www version to the www version.
Of course, as others have noted, you should use a 301 redirect for the non-www version.
Can there be issues where there's no http at the beginning?
Because both of these have the www in them, which one would you ask other people to link to you as please?
[example.com...]
or
www.example.com
Can there be issues where there's no http at the beginning?
Not that I am aware of unless of course it is a secure connection where the https is required. Other than that, the http:// is not a requirement.
Can there be issues where there's no http at the beginning?
I can't agree with pageoneresults with this one. Try this link:
<a href="www.example.org/">test</a>And you'll find that it will actually point to something like:
[example.com...]
Which is definitely not what you want. The http:// is absolutely vital.
[example.com...]
I can't agree with pageoneresults with this one. Try this link:
Ooops, should have explained myself better. Visibly (link text) the http:// is not required. When doing an a href (code), the http:// is required.
I'm thinking address window and not code. I see many people who still think the http:// is required when entering URIs in the address bar.
For the link request to your site, you need the http:// and it is a good idea also to have the trailing slash at the end of the domain name: [example.com[b]...]
Just to clarify further, the full link that you want from link partners is as follows:
<a href="http://www.example.com/">A descriptive text, the site name or some keywords here</a>
If you've got an existing site then it may be wiser to stay with the www version, but I see only a bare minimum impact from going the other way from a fresh start.
Trailing slash good.
"For the link request to your site, you need the http:// and it is a good idea also to have the trailing slash at the end of the domain name: [example.com...] "
Could you please elaborate on why the trailing slash is important? I see it many places but I have not seen why it is important.
Hans J Lysglimt
[edited by: tedster at 7:01 pm (utc) on Sep. 29, 2004]
[edit reason] remove url in sig [/edit]
Could you please elaborate on why the trailing slash is important? I see it many places but I have not seen why it is important.
One less request to the server I believe. Ever notice that when you enter a domain without the trailing forward slash that it usually gets appended to the URI instantly. Why not just skip that request and include the trailing forward slashes on all root level pages.
http://www.example.com/http://www.example.com/sub/http://www.example.com/sub/sub/Do not link directly to index pages. You never know when the underlying technology of your site is going to change and there is no reason to have a bunch of /sub/index.htm pages indexed when you could just have /sub/.
Just pick a policy and stick to it. Your choice:
Using www.example.com: 301 example.com=>www.example.com
Using example.com: 301 www.example.com=>example.com
Either way, the same result.
We use: <a href="http://www.example.com/index.html">Example.com</a>
Re: using a directory or a page as the link:
Use a page. That page will develop PR. No page name = no PR. If you change your site significantly enough that the page names change, then 301 oldpage.html=>newpage.html
Re: using the "machine name" (www, etc.):
While it may seem silly, now, given that we have so few (!) domains on the planet that "www" is practically ubiquitous ... enough so that major browser mfrs include it by default when seeking a domain, this will not always be the case. Get into the habit of linking to and asking for links to a fully qualified domain name. That way, when you start using URIs like "http://fridge.example.com/milk.xml?howmuchleft" it won't be a problem.
Get used to the future. It will be our present.
IMHO.
Use a page. That page will develop PR. No page name = no PR.
Could you expand on that please. Are you saying that if I link to...
http://www.example.com/sub/...instead of...
http://www.example.com/sub/index.htm...that the first example would not obtain PR?
[example.com...]
[example.com...]
PageRank needs a page to rank.
In the example of linking to a directory, which page in that directory would get the PR? index.html? index.htm? index.php? index.xml? home.htm? The default nameless (in the URI) page served up by the server?
The fun part comes when you change your site and need to use 301 redirects to maintain your PR.
If Google went to the directory, it did not request a page: a page was served by virtue of an entry in the server's config file.
When you change to a different page name, and 301 to that new name, then Google comes back to the directory, how can it apply the 301 to its index without an original page name to reference?
For instance, call up most any domain name in the Toolbar without including the index.html, and you still see a PR number. The SERPs include many resources that are a bare domain name or domain+directory name
It is true that when two different URLs point to the same resource, each URL may accumulate its own PR. So consistency is essential, or else you may waste PR by splitting it - or even run into a duplicate content complication. And it is also true that search engines have not sorted this very well at the current time.
But given the common habit in directories and link pages of listing just the bare domain, I choose the internal linking style "without the page name and extension." to the domain root or directory root.
[edited by: tedster at 2:03 am (utc) on Sep. 30, 2004]
Pretending that you are Google, assign PR to these examples:[example.com...]
[example.com...]PageRank needs a page to rank.
I'm no Google/PR expert, but as far as I know, there is no practical difference between these two urls.
The first, with the forward slash (and other, more complicated and subdir based urls, like www.example.com/subdir/sub/) is usually rewritten via php or mod-rewrite rules in the .htaccess file to point to an actual page whenever someone visits. This 'someone' can be a user who typed the url, a user who clicked a link, or a SE spider crawling to index a site. All three are given the same page.
The forward slash version is merely a (smart) convention that allows you to have (a) simpler urls that are easier to remember and (b) the ability to change your site's backend (like switching from .htm to .php or .asp pages) without having to alter intra- and inter-site links.
Fixed search string.
[edited by: pageoneresults at 2:39 am (utc) on Sep. 30, 2004]
My original site is set up like this (to keep it simple):
I'm running Apache2, Posix OS and PHP, and I'm using the default httpd.conf file that indicates files to be processed by PHP have the .php extension, and that index.php is one of the possible default documents.
My original home page: [example.com...]
Google goes to: [example.com...]
They end up (technically) at [example.com...] (after the server acts on the 301 redirect) where the server delivers the default home page file "index.php" (in the absence of index.htm and index.html and whatever else the default doc array contains).
Q1: What does Google index?
A1: index.php
Does Google retain the file name in its index? Probably.
I change my default Apache2 configuration so that .html files are also parsed by the PHP engine. I redesign my site, and rename my file to get rid of the .php extension.
My new home page is: [example.com...]
Google goes to: [example.com...]
They end up (technically) at [example.com...] (after the server acts on the 301 redirect) where the server delivers the default home page file "homepage.html" (in the absence of index.php et al.).
Q2: What does Google index?
A2: homepage.html
Does Google retain the file name in its index? Probably.
Does Google assign the same PR to the new file?
That's the $64k question, I believe.
What would the 301 redirect that usually passes PR on to its beneficiary look like?
301 index.php => homepage.html?
The client did not request index.php. They requested the default doc, so the redirect would not be triggered.
The PR transfer would not happen: new file with no 301 in effect = no PR transfer.
I'm encouraged by the activity in this thread, and hope the (no doubt) stimulating exchanges to follow will help put this nagging question to rest.
:)
allinurl: index.asp
allinurl: index.cfm
allinurl: index.htm
allinurl: index.html
allinurl: index.php
It looks like Google trims most of the page names with index.htm and index.html. But, when it comes to the other extensions, they do appear in the indexed URI much more frequently. Just an observation...
Links without the "http://" (ie, www.example.com) occassionally don't open - instead they generate a "The page cannot be displayed" message.
I know this is odd, since if I manually enter the same address (www.example.com), it works as IE automatically adds the "http://". But often when linking from another site, it fails to add that to the address and subsequently doesn't work.
Also, links without the "www." sometimes have failed on me also. Reading the above posts I suspect that some people won't believe me, but honestly I have had the problem.
So, in summary, [example.com...] hasn't let me down yet, whereas believe it or not, the other two systems have.
