Preferred Domain Selection Acting Strange - GWT

[riospace]

I decided to set my preferred domain name to http://www.example.com/ and when I clicked submit I had an verification error since I had inadvertently removed the verification meta tag. I added the tag back and then clicked on verify. The site was verified, but it said that my preference was set to http://example.com. I know that I selected the www so why did it say that the site was set to the non-www when I verified? I then set it to no preference and set reset the preferred domain to www and it worked, what is going on? I am glad that I noticed that it set the wrong preference after verifying. That would have been a big mess. Also, do I need to keep the non-www site in "My Sites" or can I just delete it?

One last thing, will Google get mad at me for changing my preference settings so many times in one day?

-Mark

[edited by: riospace at 4:28 pm (utc) on Oct. 14, 2006]

[jimbeetle]

For such a detailed question about how Google's technology works I think the only good answer can come from the folks at Google. Best bet is to drop them a line and see what they say.

[riospace]

What is the best way to contact Google about this question?

I forgot to mention that I thought this was so strange and I got paranoid so I decided to go through the process again to see what was going on. I removed my preference so that I could start over. I removed my meta verification and went through the steps again to set my preferred domain. First, I selected the www preferred domain and clicked to submit. Of course, it returned a verification error so I added the verification meta tag to my site uploaded and clicked verify. Again, it verified my site and said that my preference was set to NON-www preferred. What is going on? Is this a flaw that happens because of the verification error?

I guess I had too much time on my hands and got a little OCD. This is why I asked in my first post if all of these changes in the preferred domain setting would make Google mad at me? Will this cause Google to get confused about my setting? In the end, I removed the preference altogether and I am just going to set a 301 redirect.

Through this process of checking, I noticed that when I deleted the non-www site from "My Sites" and went through the process again that when my verification code is correct, Google did not add the non-www site to "My Sites" like it used to. Is the other version of the site only added to "My Sites" now if there is a verification error?

I need to relax! Thinking too much. My always told me that when I was a kid I would always mess with all of my toys trying to get them perfect and that I always ended up ruining them.

[g1smd]

Matt Cutts has changed the preferences back and forwards for his own site multiple times this year.

I would expect that changes made over a short period, like just a few hours, would have little or no long-term impact.