Display URL -- use "www."?

Or just plain "domain.com"

[Hubie]

Anyone done any split testing on

www.domain.com

vs.

domain.com

in the Display URL? Which gets better CTR?

[pjjg]

I prefer www.

When I look at my url with www. in the blue spot.
It looks better.
I tested it out with 1 campaign.
Quite similar result.

[Pengi]

Interesting thought.

Maybe I'd be better off with

"domain/area/topic"

than my current "www.domain/area" must give this one a whirl methinks.

[jtara]

I have split-tested it, and it made no difference.

Without it, though, you have more room for keywords in the display URL. It also looks "cleaner" to my eye.

I also think that "www" is archaic, and I'd encourage you to make "example.com" your canonical domain name.

[QualityNonsense]

I've split tested both and found no 'www' gets a consitently higher CTR. It stands to reason - users see the domain name (including any brand name or relevant keywords) sooner.

[SlimKim]

my test show it varies depending on the length of your ad title
if you have a longer ad title then use the www to keep display url as near the length of the ad title as possible, but you won't see much difference

[netchicken1]

I made mine without www. WWW is long to say, redundant, and just something else for people to remember.

If you just have the URL name without the www then people remember it easier.

(Double U double U double U dot Mydomain dot com)

or
Mydoamin dot com

or even just
Mydomain

My 2 cents

[sharewarepro]

Hi Hubie,

There are only four things that people can say here.

Better with. Better without. Makes no difference. No idea.

My advice? Option 5. Try it and see. I'm guessing it varies according to the domain name, amount of text in the ad etc.

Good luck,

Dave Collins

[netmeg]

One thing I noticed that did seem to make a difference (although I haven't a clue as to why) is that when I changed a display url from widgetsupplies.com to WidgetSupplies.com, it seemed to get a better click thru. Coming from a mostly UNIX background, it made me feel all icky inside to do it, but what the hey if it works. YMMV.

[QualityNonsense]

Netmet - I've always got similar results. Casting my mind back to the linguistics work I studied at university, I recall that capitalized words help readers recognise words faster, by using sight rather than semantics (ie, they typically recognize the 'shape' of the word, rather than reading the individual letters). I'm sure any Chomsky acolytes round our way can offer a clearer, fully-referenced explanation.