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Impact of a 301 redirect (from non-www to www path)
Hi guys,
First of all I would like to mention that I’m still a noob when it comes down to SEO. So please apologize when I mix things up or use certain terms or concepts incorrectly. The question I have concerns the 301 redirect we added last week (from the non-www path tot the www path) and its (possible) impact on our monthly organic traffic.
A friend of mine noticed that our loss of organic traffic in the past few months is mainly related to the fact that we didn’t set up a 301 redirect. I was under the impression that a canonical tag, which we implemented before the launch of the new website, would suffice but apparently I’m missing out on some important things. But up until today I was not able to find any evidence that supports his explanation. I hope someone can help me out with solving this issue.
Thanks in advance.
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3 Replies
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A canonical tag can be ignored. A 301 redirect cannot. That’s the heart of the issue. You’re always better off having a URL be available only one way than counting on a canonical.
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You should be able to see www and no www in Google Search Console so you can know what’s happening. Also, if Google knows about both URLs one set might be visible in Coverage > Excluded > Alternate page with proper canonical tag
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www and non-www are treated as separate websites until you instruct Google otherwise. Set up the redirects. In the future, always do 301s whenever a URL is changing.
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