Google sitelinks differ with type of domain search
member22
7:25 am on Jun 20, 2012 (gmt 0)
Hello,
I just realized that site links that google shows for my website are different whether I type
www.mywebsite.com mywebsite.com mywebsite
Can anyone explain why ?
goodroi
12:19 pm on Jun 20, 2012 (gmt 0)
I don't know for sure, but my guess would be that technically speaking www. and non www. versions are two different versions of your site. 99% of websites show the same content for both of these versions. I would assume Google would limit the sitelinks for the www. version to only urls found within www. and then for the non www. it would include urls from any subdomain of your site. As for mywebsite showing different links that is because Google sees that as a branded keywords and not a url.
It gets really fun when you start watching how one single simple typo in your brand name can display a totally different set of sitelinks.
member22
3:35 pm on Jun 20, 2012 (gmt 0)
Have your tired google.com www.google.com and google.
Check it out and let me know what your results are ... because mine are different for all the versions and I doubt google has different versions of their website.
Robert Charlton
5:25 pm on Jun 20, 2012 (gmt 0)
member22 - Yes, apparently well-canonicalized sites are showing differences. Wish we could display columns here. This is a sloppy try using alternating hyphens etc as spacers....
I'm going to skip Google (for multiple reasons) and use WebmasterWorld as the example....
[webmasterworld] Google SEO News and... - - - - - - - Link Development Google AdSense - - - - - - - - - - - Google Launches Update WebmasterWorld Forums Index... - - Recent Posts
[webmasterworld.com] Google SEO News and... - - - - - - - Google Launches Update WebmasterWorld Forums Index... - - Google AdWords Google AdSense - - - - - - - - - - - Recent Posts
[www.webmasterworld.com] Google SEO News and... - - - - - - - Link Development WebmasterWorld Forums Index... - - Google AdWords Google AdSense - - - - - - - - - - - Google Launches Update
Note in the www version that the AdSense snippet is different from the other versions. All variants also offer "More results from webmasterworld.com" below... no canonical variation noted in that particular site specification (which I'm bolding to point it out).
SERPs page displays have their own peculiar algorithm and servers, I'm assuming, than the index itself, but they often provide clues to what Google is doing underneath.
tedster
5:28 pm on Jun 20, 2012 (gmt 0)
That is a very sharp observation - and yes, I do see the same thing. Sitelinks are different with and without the "www" even for a website that has had a canonical 301 redirect in place for eight years.
I can only assume that Google has some algorithm in place that has noticed a slightly different user intention between the two queries. In other words, it's about the user and not the website.
