Use whichever you prefer, but use only one. For a new site, www is the slightly more flexible technical choice because it works with ordinary DNS records and CDNs, while no www gives a shorter address. If your site already has traffic on one version, keep that one and redirect the other to it.
Why it matters
A search engine sees www.example.com and example.com as different hostnames. If both answer with the same pages, you have two copies of your site competing with each other, and every link may point at either one. Choosing one host and redirecting the other keeps your links, reports and analytics together.
How to choose
- If the site is already live and ranking, keep the version that people and search results already use. Changing a working host adds risk and gains nothing.
- If the site is new, choose www when you expect to use a CDN or a hosting provider that asks you to point a CNAME record at their address. A bare domain cannot normally hold a CNAME, though many providers offer ALIAS or flattening to work around that.
- Choose no www when you want the shortest address for print, social profiles and word of mouth, and your DNS provider supports pointing the bare domain at your host.
- Add a permanent 301 redirect from the version you did not choose to the one you did, for every path and not only the home page.
- Test all four combinations by hand: http with www, http without www, https with www and https without www. Each should end on the same single address in one hop.
You can check each redirect quickly from a terminal:
curl -sI http://example.com/ | head -n 5
curl -sI https://www.example.com/ | head -n 5
Look for a 301 status and a location header pointing at your chosen address.
Common mistakes
- Serving the same content on both hosts and relying on Google to guess.
- Choosing one host in the sitemap but linking to the other inside your pages.
- Using a 302 temporary redirect where a 301 permanent redirect was intended.
- Redirecting to the chosen host through two or three extra hops.
- Telling Search Console about one host while your canonical tags name another.
Frequently asked questions
Does a bare domain hurt my site speed?
Not by itself. Speed depends on your hosting, caching and page weight. The bare-domain DNS limitation affects how you configure records, not how fast pages load once configured.
Which should I use for email addresses?
Your email address uses the domain, such as name@example.com, and does not depend on whether your website uses www. Mail records are set separately from website records.
Should I show www in print and ads?
Show whatever your chosen address is. If you print the version that redirects, people still arrive, but a consistent address looks more professional and avoids an extra redirect.
Related guides
- WWW vs non-WWW: choose one canonical host and redirect the other
- Website migration SEO checklist
- Canonical URLs and duplicate pages
- DNS records basics for launch
Crawvix's scan checks that your site settles on one canonical host. Try the free website sample to see your own result.