How Google indexes example.com vs www.example.com

Is there a difference in some cases?

[Glen_Murphy]

Hi,

I, like many others here, have been a victim of the Google re-indexing that took place late last year (a number #1 site is now on the 2nd or 3rd results pages, with many irrelevant or ghost sites before me).

After months and months of investigating and pulling my hair out, I am really no closer to figuring out why Google suddenly does not like this particular site anymore.

One of the things I came across today is the way Google indexes two versions of a site URL.

For example, if I type in the URL of the above mentioned site as:

www.site.com

It will return with a fully indexed title, description, cache date etc, of the page.

However, if I type in just

site.com

It returns with just the following (hyperlinked):

site.com

with no description, title or cache date.

Now, is this normal? Not always it seems. I used another site I own and did the same experiement, and in both cases Google returned with a full description, cache date etc for both versions of the url.

Now this got me thinking - have we done something from a system admin point of view to the site I mentioned first above, that may effect the way Google looks at and indexes one version of the url vs the other?

Bottomline - what reasons would Google have to not fully index site.com Vs www.site.com

[Dayo_UK]

I think g1smd was talking about your page that is still in the index. :)

I agree - I dont think we should be removing the non-www with the removal tool.

[The Contractor]

haha...oh... well, I think I'll leave it so I have a good example to point to..

[stickyboy]

I have created a link to my incorrect non www version and see if anything happens.

[Dayo_UK]

Ok - had my first site that has a 301 from a non-www to www picked up by Google and displayed in the index.

Backlinks still different when doing a non-www and www search (well displayed backlinks anyway)

No real improvements in rank yet but Google is crawling it more logically (eg first level then second level - rather than any page at random)

Still cant get Google to find the 301 for my main site - starting to throw all sorts of links at it.

[stickyboy]

I dont have a 301 re-direct as such. My hosting changed my access.conf file on the server which seems to do the same thing ie. if I type [domainname.com...] then it changes the address into the www version but have noticed that when I gave a link to the non version from another site and I click on that link it doesnt change to the www version and shows the google PR (which is different to the www one). Is that a problem or can I tell if it does the same thing as a 301 redirect?

[Dayo_UK]

Stickyboy

Doing a header checker check on your domain shows a 301 moved permanetly to the www. on your non-www page.

Good luck.

My site which Google has picked up the 301 on is all over the place at the moment - which I guess is better than rock bottom - The site needs a good crawl though.