Setting Your Preferred Domain Helps

Have you ever wondered why Google is indexing http://yourdomain.com instead of http://www.yourdomain.com? There has already been a post that stated that Google treats variations in URL patterns as reference to different pages. For example, Google considers the above two variations as two separate pages. Therefore you are advised to use a single format in the URL pattern all through your site and also when you are placing your links in other websites so that your website will get the full benefit of linking.

You will be able to make Google index the page you want and to ignore the other versions even if there has been any inconsistencies in the reference patterns. This can be done by setting your preferred domain URL. Those who have used Google’s webmaster tools will be able to relate to this immediately. You can make use of Google’s webmaster tools by signing up for a Google account. After logging in, you will be able to set your preferred domain URL in other words you will be able to set your canonical domain. By setting the preferred domain URL you are instructing Google spiders to use the version you are suggesting in the preferred URL field for your website when they are listed in the search results.

If you happen to set your preferred URL as http://www.yourdomain.com, then Google will automatically convert your links that are specified as http://yourdomain.com to the above format in all the future crawls. The URLs will also be displayed in the format that you have set in the preferred URL column. However, before you can set the preferred URL for your website you need to verify your ownership of your website by following the instructions that you will find under Google Webmaster Tools account.

You can also choose to set the preference to “Don’t set a preferred domain” in this case you are telling Google to consider different patterns to your domain as separate pages. As long as you are consistent with your linking pattern and with your usage of URL format, you will not have any problem. However if you happen to be inconsistent or if your linking partners choose to use their own format in their websites then the effect of link building will get diluted.

After setting your preference, you must allow some time for Google to reflect this change. By default, Google will take all the URLs in the non-preferred version and that is how it will index all the websites including yours. To be on the safer side you must set the option to Preferred Domain. This is not going to cost you any money, Google webmaster tools are free and it will hardly take few minutes to verify you site ownership  and to set the option. If you are not internet savvy, you can get help from your SEO company to have your preferences changed. One can easily overlook all these finer details but it is these finer details that differentiate you from those who get listed in the top positions in the search results.

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