Redirect www and non-www to one canonical version

15 min Impact: high Effort: low ✓ Scan-verified — no manual checkbox

If both www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com load as separate, live sites instead of one redirecting to the other, search engines see duplicate content at two different URLs and split your ranking signals between them instead of concentrating everything on one canonical domain.

If both www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com load as live, independent sites instead of one redirecting to the other, search engines see duplicate content and split your ranking signals between two URLs instead of concentrating them on one.

The full picture

Consistent redirection between www and non-www versions of your domain to a single, canonical version addresses a genuine technical ambiguity that can otherwise fragment your SEO authority — without this redirection, both www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com can potentially be treated as separate entities by search engines, splitting ranking signal and backlink authority across what should genuinely be understood as identical content.

This fragmentation risk is genuinely significant precisely because both versions typically remain technically accessible without proper redirection — visitors and search engines can reach your content through either version, and without explicit redirection establishing one as canonical, backlinks and direct traffic accumulate inconsistently across both versions rather than consolidating toward a single, authoritative version.

The specific choice between www and non-www as your preferred canonical version matters less than the consistency of enforcing whichever choice you make — either represents a valid, common convention, but the genuine SEO value comes from comprehensive, consistent redirection ensuring all traffic and signal consolidates toward your chosen version rather than splitting across both.

This redirection should be implemented at the server or DNS level, ensuring genuinely comprehensive coverage across every possible entry point to your site, rather than relying on more fragile, partial solutions like client-side redirects that might not catch every access pattern, including direct backlinks pointing specifically to whichever version you didn't choose as canonical.

How to fix it

1

Decide your canonical version

Pick either www or non-www as your one true version — there's no SEO advantage to either choice, consistency is what matters.
2

Set up a 301 redirect from the other

Most registrars, hosts, and Cloudflare all support this in domain or DNS settings — a permanent redirect, not a temporary one.
3

Update your canonical tags and sitemap to match

Make sure every canonical tag and every sitemap URL consistently uses your chosen version.
4

Test both variants after the change

Visit the non-canonical version directly and confirm it redirects cleanly to your canonical domain.

Common mistakes

This is a common oversight after a domain migration or CMS change — worth checking even if you're confident it was set up correctly originally, since a config change elsewhere can silently break the redirect.

How you'll know it's done

The non-canonical www/non-www variant correctly 301-redirects to your single canonical domain.

H.I.V.E. checks this automatically

Fix it, then re-scan — the check confirms itself. No manual checkbox, the scan is the truth.

Run this check in H.I.V.E. →