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WWW Redirect Checker

Enter a domain. The tool requests all four versions of the address and shows whether each one ends at the same place.

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WWW Redirect Checker - results and guide

What the WWW Redirect Checker checks

  • http and https, with and without www: four requests
  • Whether all four end at one preferred address
  • Versions that do not resolve or fail to load
  • Temporary redirects where a permanent one belongs
  • Variants that need more than one hop to get there
  • Whether the preferred version uses https
  • Whether the canonical tag on the home page agrees

www or non-www: does it matter?

To a search engine, example.com and www.example.com are different hosts. Add http and https and a site has four possible addresses for every page. If more than one of them answers with content, you have duplicates: links and ranking signals are split between the copies, and visitors can end up on a version without a valid certificate.

Neither form is better for SEO. The www prefix makes some DNS and cookie setups easier for large sites; the bare domain is shorter. What matters is choosing one and sending the other three to it.

What a correct setup looks like

All three non-preferred versions should answer with a 301 that goes directly to the same page on the preferred version. A common flaw is a two-step route: http://www first switches to https://www and only then to https:// without www. It works, but costs an extra round trip on every visit from an old link.

Both hosts need DNS records and a certificate that covers them, or the redirect cannot happen. Finally, the canonical tag, the sitemap and your internal links should all use the preferred version. Check the tag with the Canonical URL Checker.

How to use the WWW Redirect Checker

  1. Enter the domain or page address you want to check. You can leave out https://.
  2. Press Check versions. The page is fetched from our servers, the way a search engine crawler would fetch it.
  3. Read the findings from top to bottom: problems first, then warnings. Each one says what to change.

Common problems and how to fix them

The www version does not resolve

Add a DNS record for www (a CNAME to the bare domain or an A record to the same server) and include www in the certificate. Then redirect it.

Both versions show the site

Add a host redirect. Apache: RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ then RewriteRule ^ https://example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]. Nginx: a separate server block for the other host that returns 301.

A variant needs two redirects

Write the rule so that both the protocol and the host are corrected in one step, by redirecting to the full preferred URL.

Frequently asked questions

Is www or non-www better for SEO?
Neither. Google treats them equally. Pick one, redirect the other to it and use it consistently everywhere.
Why does my site work without www but not with it?
The www host has no DNS record, or the server and certificate are not configured for it. Add both and set up a redirect.
What type of redirect should I use?
A 301 permanent redirect. It tells search engines which version to index and transfers signals from the other versions.
Do I still need this with a canonical tag?
Yes. A canonical tag is a hint for search engines. A redirect also moves visitors and is a much stronger signal.

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