www or no www in URL?

[Sally Stitts]

Here's a weird one.
In my travels to comply with HTTPS, I found something interesting.
Mostly, I must update my outgoing links from HTTP to HTTPS, for those who have changed.

But, what I have noticed is, that -
- MANY formerly www prefixed sites have changed to non-www URLs
and
- MANY formerly non-www prefixed sites have changed to www URLs.

This has caused me to surmise, "Just who is fixing what?"
Those who went for simplification went for non-www (new school, clean and mean)?
Those who went for an expected, traditional URL added www (old school familiarity advantage)?

Thoughts?
.

[phranque]

my guess is that many don't know how to properly implement the hostname canonicalization redirect.

[keyplyr]

Thoughts?

Change as little as possible.

[keyplyr]

But, what I have noticed is, that -
- MANY formerly www prefixed sites have changed to non-www URLs
and
- MANY formerly non-www prefixed sites have changed to www URLs.

I haven't seen that, and I play close attention.

There was a trend years ago to not use the sub-domain placeholder (WW) but it was short lived. Most all domains use WWW and have for many years. And again, I've seen no trend to change it because of adopting secure protocol. If you've actually seen changes Sally Stitts, then a likely reason may be as Phranque posted.

When changing from HTTP to HTTPS I would recommend not changing anything else to confuse your users.

[tangor]

Your links out need not be changed. It is up to the other site to define their protocol ... and have the proper redirects if required. Leave YOUR site alone!

That said, for authority sites you can verify having made the change, and what they prefer, sure, you can do that to your code if you like (or actually have that much spare time).