www Subdomain & Redirect

What is this?

There are two common problems with www:

1. www doesn't resolve at all - users who type www.yourdomain.com get a connection error
2. Both www and the apex domain serve content - Google treats them as two separate websites, splitting PageRank

The right setup: pick one canonical domain (most apps use the apex - yourdomain.com), and have the other redirect to it with a 301.

Why it matters

• Broken user experience. Many users still type "www" by habit. If it errors out, they think your site is down.
• SEO dilution. If both serve content, Google sees two sites competing for the same rankings. Your backlinks and PageRank get split 50/50.
• Crawl confusion. Search engines may index the wrong version or both versions of your pages.

How to fix it

1. Decide which is canonical: yourdomain.com (apex) or www.yourdomain.com - most modern sites use the apex
2. Add a CNAME record for www pointing to your apex (or your host's redirect service)
3. Configure a 301 redirect from the non-canonical version to the canonical one

Providers & tools

server {
  server_name www.yourdomain.com;
  return 301 https://yourdomain.com$request_uri;
}