Redirecting from www to non-www?

Question

Hello –
If I am redirecting people from http://www.mysite.com to http://mysite.com .. the 'scope' of what I am moving.. would that be the:
A) Domain
B) Subdomain
C) Directory

I hope I worded that in a way that makes sense. Although I've had a website for my store for 10+ years, I've never had a reason to know the technical stuff beyond pressing the Publish button. :)

I recently started redirecting people from the www version of our site to the non-www version, and set up a 301 permanent redirect on our site. Bing has an option under Webmaster Tools called 'Site Move' that lets you tell them which version of your site you'll be using, so they know which to index. (I never realized it wasn't advised to use both.)

(Screenshot attached) Under the "Site Move" option, I have check-marked the box that says: “I am moving URLs from one place to another within the current site” (which I am) and it asks me the scope.. giving me the option of Domain, Subdomain or Directory. Does anyone know which one it is?

Since it only allows you to make this decision once every 6 months, I wanted to be sure I was doing it right and I don't make a mistake that affects my website ranking.
Thanks in advance for any help. :)

Answer 1

www. is effectively a subdomain, you will see some sites invent variations like ww2.



It's bad for your search ranking to have more than one variation indexed by the search engines, particularly of other sites link to both variations it dilutes your potential search ranking.



Some host control panels have a setting to resolve this so the visitor ends up seeing a consistent form, most linux hosts allow an .htaccess script, which can remove the www., when a visitor bookmarks or copies and links to our address they will be using your preferred form.

Answer 2

Hi



The main version of redirection URL is

www DOT mysite DOT com



but your redirecting http:// mysite DOT com



ones check your website URL canonicalization,



If it is good, I think there is not need to redirect in Bing Webmasters A/C.

Answer 3

Google and MSN don't do it. When redirecting from SSL to non-SSL for the first time the user is asked whether they want to display these messages in the future, if they check the box, then it will display every time, otherwise not. The default option is not to display them in the future. The setting in Internet Explorer is in Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Security and in Firefox it is in Tools > Options > Security > Warning Messages > Settings