www redirect checker

Technically, example.com and www.example.com are two different hostnames. If both serve content without a redirect, search engines index each as a separate site with identical content — duplicate content, split link equity, weaker rankings. A single 301 redirect from one version to the other consolidates the two into one canonical site. Which one you pick (www or non-www) doesn't affect SEO directly — consistency does.

What this tool checks

• Alt-hostname redirect — probes the alternative hostname (flips www on/off) and checks whether it redirects to the primary
• Redirect status code — 301 / 308 (permanent) vs 302 / 307 / 303 (temporary)
• Redirect target hostname — the Location header should point to the primary domain, not elsewhere
• Path preservation — requesting www.example.com/some-path should redirect to example.com/some-path, not dump you at the homepage
• Alt hostname returning 200 — both versions serve content directly, a duplicate-content problem
• Alt hostname not accessible — users who type the unredirected variant can't reach the site at all

www or non-www: which to choose

From an SEO perspective no difference — pick one and be consistent. Practical considerations:

• Non-www — shorter URL, cleaner-looking, easier to type. Most modern sites default here.
• With www — historically the only way to use a CNAME at the apex (most DNS providers now offer ALIAS/ANAME records for non-www). Also allows cleaner cookie scoping between subdomains.
• Consistency is what matters — whichever you choose, internal links, canonical tags, sitemap.xml, and robots.txt must all use that form. Mixing them signals uncertainty to crawlers.

Good vs bad examples

Good — Nginx 301 redirect www → non-www with path preservation:

server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  server_name www.example.com;
  return 301 https://example.com$request_uri;
}

Good — Cloudflare redirect rule: "When hostname equals www.example.com, redirect to https://example.com + path".

Bad — both hostnames serve 200 responses (duplicate content):

GET https://www.example.com/product → 200 OK
GET https://example.com/product → 200 OK

Bad — redirect loses the path (every URL lands on homepage):

GET https://www.example.com/deep-article
→ 301 Location: https://example.com/  ← should be /deep-article

Bad — temporary 302 for what should be permanent canonicalization:

GET https://www.example.com/
→ 302 Location: https://example.com/

Common mistakes

• Both versions serve 200 — duplicate content issue, split link equity. Most common when DNS was configured for both but the web server lacks the redirect rule
• 302 instead of 301 — temporary redirect signals search engines to keep the alt version in the index longer
• Redirect drops the path — "www.site.com/article" → "site.com/" loses deep-link functionality. Use $request_uri (Nginx) or %{REQUEST_URI} (Apache) in the redirect target
• Missing DNS record for the alt variant — if DNS doesn't resolve www.example.com at all, the redirect can't run. Add an A or CNAME record for both variants
• Inconsistent usage in canonical tags / sitemap.xml / internal links — even with a working redirect, pointing at the non-canonical version internally is sloppy and adds unnecessary redirect hops
• Redirecting to a third domain — www.example.com → different-brand.com is a domain migration, not www canonicalization