Site names shown on Google with or without http / www

[kembreg]

Google sometimes includes http or www in the search results and somteimes not.

For example, if you search in Google:

"Course for learning about widgets", some results show:

something.example1.fr
[example2.com...]
www.example3.com

Why is there no "www" on the first one", a full "https://www" on the 2nd one and a "www" on the last one.

Is the anywhere to tell google how to show the site name?

I think less people will click on a site with the prefix "https://www." because it looks weird and many don't know what "https" is.

That could affect a sites performance.

Any way to tell google "Just use the www prefix"

Thanks,

David

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 4:07 pm (utc) on May 15, 2009]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]

[tedster]

Hello kembreg, and welcome to the forums.

Yes there's a way to tell Google which you prefer - set up a Webmaster Tools account and within that you'll find the option. Or, even better, set up your server to use a 301 redirect from the "no-www" form to the "with-www" form (reference [webmasterworld.com]}. The https protocol might be a problem if the url is also available through the http protocol. Here's a reference for fixing that [webmasterworld.com].

These are all exqamples of canonical problems, and there are, potentially, many others [webmasterworld.com]. The best approach is to prevent them yourself on your own server - but if you cannot do that for some reason, such as shared hosting, then the recently introduced canonical tag [webmasterworld.com] is a good option.