Member Avatar for benevolent001

hi,just today only i noticed this,after the PR update recently all the 20 pages of our website got PR4,earlier only our homepage www.mydomain.com/index.htm was having PR 4
but after this update all have got 4
any way my question is this ,i found a big problem for our website
i found that when i enter www.mydomain.com it shows PR4 and when just mydomain.com/ it gives PR3.
Whats this
i thinks google cosiders these as different urls and indexing to give diff PR
i wanted to know how much PR you think we are loosin due to this considering the fact if the google had considered both URLs same
main thing is that how can i find those links on the web which are back links to both these urls and correct the problem so that we may gain some PR as sice 3 months we have just 4 and we want to improve it

Your suggestions and comments are anticipated

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by seo2k6

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Short diagnosis tied to the thread: the differing PR you saw for www.mydomain.com vs mydomain.com is a canonicalization/host split — links that use one form don’t automatically count toward the other, so signals (and toolbar PR at the time) can look split. Don’t rely on the old toolbar PageRank as a metric — Google removed the public toolbar PR years ago; measure progress with Search Console and traffic instead. (developers.google.com)

A practical, low-risk checklist (pick one hostname and enforce it site‑wide):

  • Pick the canonical host you prefer (www or non‑www) and use it everywhere (internal links, sitemaps, canonical tags).
  • Enforce a server‑side 301 from the non‑preferred host to the preferred host (server redirects + canonical tags give the clearest signals).
  • Add self‑referencing rel="canonical" tags and submit an XML sitemap using the preferred host.
  • Verify both variants in Google Search Console so you can monitor indexing, link data and any issues.
  • Keep redirects in place long enough for Google to reprocess signals (generally months; Google recommends keeping them at least a year during migrations). (developers.google.com)

How to find and clean backlinks that point to the “wrong” hostname:

  • Use the Search Console Links report first (export “Latest links” / “More sample links”) — note it groups by root domain and can mask subdomain differences, so it won’t always show a clean www/non‑www split.
  • Supplement with a backlink index (Ahrefs, Majestic, Moz, SEMrush) using exact‑URL or subdomain filters to list pages that link to mydomain.com vs www.mydomain.com. Export, sort by domain value, and contact high‑value linking sites to ask for the preferred URL or let the 301 handle it. For low‑value/spammy links, consider a careful disavow only after outreach. ()

Final notes: rel="canonical" is a strong hint but not an absolute command — combine redirects, canonical tags, consistent internal links and sitemap signals for best results. Monitor Search Console and analytics; expect improvements to appear over weeks to months as Google re‑crawls and consolidates signals. (developers.google.com)

(As , and commented: link format and redirects matter — add the canonical tag and Search Console checks to complete the picture.)

Recommended Answers

All 9 Replies

Member Avatar for JAMMAN

What method are you using to determine page rank?
I've noticed a higher page rank from incoming links depending on how the links are structured.. www is actually a sub domain of mydomain.com (example links only). If the incoming links are written www then the PR will be higher when you use www. If they use simply mydomain.com to link to you the PR sould be higher without the www.

Member Avatar for jfister

hi,just today only i noticed this,after the PR update recently all the 20 pages of our website got PR4,earlier only our homepage www.mydomain.com/index.htm was having PR 4
but after this update all have got 4
any way my question is this ,i found a big problem for our website
i found that when i enter www.mydomain.com it shows PR4 and when just mydomain.com/ it gives PR3.
Whats this
i thinks google cosiders these as different urls and indexing to give diff PR
i wanted to know how much PR you think we are loosin due to this considering the fact if the google had considered both URLs same
main thing is that how can i find those links on the web which are back links to both these urls and correct the problem so that we may gain some PR as sice 3 months we have just 4 and we want to improve it

Your suggestions and comments are anticipated

I recommend consolidating all links to one or the other. For my sites, I always use the "www." in front of the domain name. Then I make sure that most of the links on the site are absolute references containing the "www." prefix.

Member Avatar for Scribbller

301 non www traffic to the www side of things, better SEO longterm.
Why? You combine your page rank from two sites (domain.com and www.domain.com) into one, ultimatly will pass on more PR to your sub-pages, hence, better SEO.

301 redirect

if($_SERVER=='example.com') {
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://www.example.com/");
header("Connection: close");
}

Member Avatar for pctec

I too always use the . it was one of the first things I read about SEO

Member Avatar for stymiee

Google sees your website with the 'www' (http://www.example.com) as a different page the without (http://example.com). Pages that link to the page without the 'www' are hurting your pages with the 'www' as the PR is essentially being split between the two pages. Fortunately this is easy to fix. Use a 301 redirect to redirect Google, and everyone else, to the 'www' page from the non 'www' page. The code would look similar to this (mod_rewrite required):

Options +FollowSymlinks 
RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www\.|$) [NC] 
RewriteRule ^  [L,R=301]

To go from the 'www' to non 'www' use this code:

Options +FollowSymlinks 
RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST}//s%{HTTPS} ^www\.(.*)//((s)on|s.*)$ [NC] 
RewriteRule ^ http%3://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Member Avatar for RiverKqj

Hi guys im new here great site by the way , been reading alot of the posts around and have noticed alot of people talking about their sites going up and down in the PR's , this is because there are many bot's for google and on seperate servers, you can test your site in the link below, if you have the same pr all the way down then you've got a strong PR , if not then it will jump from PR to PR

Hope this helps some people...

Regards Riverkqj

Member Avatar for seo2k6

hi,just today only i noticed this,after the PR update recently all the 20 pages of our website got PR4,earlier only our homepage www.mydomain.com/index.htm was having PR 4
but after this update all have got 4
any way my question is this ,i found a big problem for our website
i found that when i enter www.mydomain.com it shows PR4 and when just mydomain.com/ it gives PR3.
Whats this
i thinks google cosiders these as different urls and indexing to give diff PR
i wanted to know how much PR you think we are loosin due to this considering the fact if the google had considered both URLs same
main thing is that how can i find those links on the web which are back links to both these urls and correct the problem so that we may gain some PR as sice 3 months we have just 4 and we want to improve it

Your suggestions and comments are anticipated

Dear Friend,

The problem arose with you is called cononicalisation problem.
Whenver google crawlers found more than one instance for a domain name, they give a sort of panelty to the website.

The solution of the above problem is to setup 301 Permanent redirect for the different instances of the domain i.e. abc.com, www.abc.com/, to a particular domain name like >> www.abc.com .

It will never ask you to lose your page rank and always remember to hyperlink the main domain only whenever putting links rather than using other instances.

Hope this will help you out.

Cheers,
SEO2K6

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