Adsense Owned Sites Report mysteriously duplicating a site

[slobizman]

I have three sites, www.site1.com, www.site2.com and www.site3.com. Keying in without the www, resolves to the www site, in the usual way.

After years of having no issues with my Adsense reporting with these site, something very odd started happening today. The three sites are running Adsense in my one account. For a long time, the three of them have been listed in my Settings/Access & Authorization/Site Authorization page as:

site1.com
site2.com
site3.com

In my Adsense reports, both the "Sites" and "Owned Sites" reports are identical, showing the three sites with their totals.

That is, until yesterday they showed the same thing.

Yesterday and Today, the the Owned Sites Report shows an extra line in the report, the "www" version of one of the sites. Like this:

site1.com
www.site2.com
site2.com
site3.com

The Sites report (as opposed to Owned Sites) still shows just the three sites, excluding the www.site2.com.

The revenue from site2.com is duplicated in the Owned Sites report, showing the same number for site2.com and for www.site2.com.

So, I headed over to Settings/Site Management to see what it shows. Well, where it previously showed just site1.com, site2.com and site3.com under the "Owned" sites, it now also show the www.site2.com, indented on a line under site2.com. Like this:

site2.com
- www.site2.com
site1.com
site3.com

I did not add this www.site2.com into the page. Adsense itself had to have done this. And like I said, it just happened yesterday.

There are no sites listed under the "Unclaimed" tab.

I have the option to remove the www.site2.com from this Site Management page, but not sure I should since I wonder why Adsense added it there.

(I checked as to how sites should be listed in the Access & Authorization/Site Authorization page, and placing them all without the "www" is correct in order to make sure that the entire sites are covered.)

So, can anyone tell me

1) why or how I would have gotten the www.site2.com added to my Settings/Site Management list of sites?

2) if I should just check the box for www.site2.com on the Settings/Site Management list to remove it.

I don't think they will be double paying me for site2.com and www.site2.com, but I want to be careful to do anything that looks wrong.

[IanCP]

Quite possibly it is one of Google's quirks. For quite a long time GWT reports one of my sites under two different headings:

Choose a verified site
example.com
www.example.com

Don't ask me why, because I don't know. However it has never affected anything - so I never bothered pursuing these quirks. Ditto for AdSense.

Yes, years back with the kind assistance of WebmasterWorld's Robert Charlton, and a few other souls we did some very arcane, complex, and comprehensive tests.

It still remains to this day one of life's eternal mysteries.

[not2easy]

If you key "www.site2.com" into your browser, does it change automatically to "site2.com"? If you key "site2.com" into your browser, does it change automatically to "www.site2.com"? If you can reach both URLs without any change, it should be fixed to only show one or the other.

If your server is Apache, this is done in the .htaccess file. They should both resolve to only one version. You should also complete the Preferences in your GWT account if you haven't done that.

[slobizman]

@not2easy:

"If you key "site2.com" into your browser, does it change automatically to "www.site2.com"?"

Yes, it does. I have that done properly via htaccess as you mentioned. Not one is really able to be on the site without the "www".