Did you know that www.mywebsite.com and mywebsite.com are two completely different things? Yes? Well, I’m relieved, but let’s repeat it once again for those who weren’t listening carefully. And there are more than a few.
Omitting to place www in a website address may be compared to omitting a few letters out of your first or last name. Some letters seem just about right, but – at the end of the day – that is not your first name, and surely isn’t your last name either.
So let us make sure that you do not make these kinds of mistakes in the digital world, shouldn’t we?
With or without www
There are search engines that see websites with the same address but having or lacking www as completely different entities. It happens that your non-www address will lead visitors – nowhere. A search engine might not recognize it, and you will be left out with no traffic, and no sharing.
Who wasn’t paying attention?
You would not expect this from educational institutions, but when you go to click web pages of the websites of entities such as Open University (http://open.ac.uk) or Oxford University (http://oc.ac.uk), you will go to their non-www page, and you’ll get nothing.
Some more are UK Trade & Investment, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, Jessops, Companies House, etc.
What an enormous loss over omitting just three letters.
Nevertheless – what to do?
When in this situation, the best thing is to redirect the non-www webpage version to www one. You may also set the domain in tools in case that you have both www and non-www websites. The third thing you do for yourself – make sure that SOMETHING is showing up on the non-www version.
What NOT to do?
Whatever you do, skip this one: please do not leave your non-www page blank. The effect of these (or the lack of effects) will surely last longer than it takes to make adjustments. And this is not something that any network administrator can not solve in a couple of minutes and clicks.