Canonicalization and its effect on website rankings

What’s in a name?

Search engines live by a code and if the code is the same but not quite the same, then the search engines get confused and can treat a single web design as two different entities. In fact, it is quite hard to really understand exactly how Google treats variations in URLs but it seems to be that if the prefix: www is used in a link to your website, it is counted as a visit but if another link is used without the www prefix, then that visit is counted as though visiting another website. If 50% of your visitors arrive via www and 50% don’t, Google only measures 50% of the interest in your website.

Measure for measure

If Google only records 50% interest in your website, it will not rank it so highly in the searches because it thinks that only 50% of your visitors have shown interest. This lowering in the page rankings is very bad for business. There is another problem: if Google thinks that there are two websites with identical content then it may penalise your website for copying content, a definite negative when it comes to search engine optimisation.

Web design in London is a major contributor to the growth of ecommerce and solving the canonicalization problem is just one of the ways that website design in the UK ensures that it continues to lead the world. Life is tough for many businesses even in 2012 and more emphasis than ever is being put on good web design and top of the range search engine optimisation. It is pretty depressing if the search engine that controls 96% of the traffic refuses to make allowances for the fact that some links to your website have the www prefix and some do not.

Laziness is the key

Dropping the www prefix was simply because people got bored saying the three Ws. Consequently, web design in London agencies also dropped the www prefix in links and advertising and rather than frustrate visitors, servers made adjustments so that people found the right website with or without the www prefix. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t care for the change and still considers the two links as leading to different websites. A quick solution is for your website designer to set it up so that if a link without the www prefix is clicked, then the visitor is taken to your website via the www prefix link. That way, Google can see exactly how many visitors your ecommerce or business website is receiving and does not think that you are operating two identical websites. It is also important for your digital design agency to ensure that your website’s internal links all retain the www prefix.

There are other methods that can be implemented by your digital ecommerce design agency for solving the canonicalization problem - and it is a problem, even if it is one that is hidden from view. In other words, when giving out your website’s URL, make sure that redirection is set up via www - or make sure that the www prefix is included in all your marketing material and online links.