[bostonmark]

Hi all,

I have a site that's been around since 2006. It was my first blog and I didn't know much about SEO then. I'm redesigning it and re-coding but I will keep my existing content. There are two things I want to change when I push up the new site design:

1. Right now the URL's force a www.sitename.com so if you go to http://sitename.com/foo/bar it will redirect you to http://www.sitename.com/foo/bar

I would like to change this to the opposite to force removal of the www sub-domain. I know how to do it, so I'm really just wondering if it will negatively affect my site in search engines since all of my URLs all of a sudden change? Will it be worth it in the long run?

2. I have my title tags setup up as "Sitename > Article Title" but I want to change it to "Article title - Site name"

Will this change also harm me? Is it better in the long run though to make this change?

Thanks!

[Dan Schulz]

They shouldn't have any negative impact - as long as you're careful. When you remove the www. subdomain, make sure you 301 redirect it to the non-www version so you don't lose any rankings (and other benefits). Also, having the page title come before the site name should help you rank for the keywords unique to the page you're targeting.

[www.GameFriends.com]

I think websites without the www tend to rank better as their keywords in the url and part of the url appear earlier than those with the www in their names....so I say go for it

[Dan Schulz]

Originally Posted by www.GameFriends.com

I think websites without the www tend to rank better as their keywords in the url and part of the url appear earlier than those with the www in their names....so I say go for it

You think wrong. It doesn't matter in this case.

[visual]

The website which compulsory open with www will give better ranking on the search engines because search engine do considers the domain names with www.

[Dan Schulz]

Originally Posted by visual

The website which compulsory open with www will give better ranking on the search engines because search engine do considers the domain names with www.

Wrong. They'll pick whichever one has the more "authority" - regardless of whether it has the WWW subdomain or not. The other will simply be filtered out of the SERPS. That's why it's important to PICK ONE (and 301 redirect the other to it).