Yes, they can. Google treats www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com as two different addresses. If both load your site and neither one redirects to the other, Google sees two copies of your business, picks one on its own, and splits your links and data between them.
The fix is one permanent redirect. The check takes two minutes, and most owners have never done it. The site was set up once, by a developer or a hosting company, and nobody looked again.
That is common across St. Augustine. A shop off St. George Street moves to a new host or gets a redesign, and the old redirect quietly stops working.
Why would www and non-www compete with each other?
Technically, “www” is a subdomain, so it is a separate address from your bare domain. When both show the same pages, Google has to decide which one is real. It usually guesses right, but it is still guessing.
Here is what that guess costs you:
- Your links get split. The chamber of commerce links to the www version. A customer’s blog links to the version without it. Each link only helps the copy it points to.
- Google picks the version you show. It may not be the address on your truck, your business cards or your Google Business Profile.
- Your reports show half the picture. Google Search Console can track one version while traffic and problems sit on the other.
To be fair: there is no penalty for this. Google is good at folding duplicate copies together. It is a slow leak, not a crash. But a slow leak is exactly what keeps a small business on page two.
Is www or non-www better for SEO?
Neither one ranks better. Google has said so for years. What matters is picking one and using it everywhere.
| Your situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Existing site with years of links | Keep the one you have | Your links, reviews and history already point there |
| Brand new local business site | Non-www | Shorter on signs, trucks and business cards |
| Many subdomains, like a shop, app or portal | www | Easier to keep each part separate |
| Host that can't point a bare domain well | www | Some older hosting and content delivery setups need it |
For most local businesses, the short answer is: keep whichever one you already use. If you have years of links and reviews pointing at one version, that history is worth more than a shorter address.
How do I check how my site is set up?
Your site can actually be reached at four addresses: http and https, each with and without www. All four should end up at the same one. Here is the two-minute check.
- Type all four into your browser. For example,
http://yoursite.com,http://www.yoursite.com,https://yoursite.comandhttps://www.yoursite.com. Watch the address bar after each loads. If any one stays put instead of switching to your main version, you have two copies. - Confirm the redirects are permanent. Paste the four addresses into a free checker like httpstatus.io. Each should show a 301 (permanent) to your main version. A 302 means “temporary,” and Google may keep both versions around.
- Check your canonical tag. Open your homepage, right-click, choose “View page source,” and search for
canonical. It should point to the same version your redirects go to. - See what Google has indexed. Search Google for
site:yoursite.com. If the results show a mix of www and non-www addresses, Google is holding both.
The site: search is a rough check, not an exact count. But a mix of both versions is a clear sign the setup needs work.
I ran this check on aiwhirks.com while writing this post, and the www version loaded with no redirect. Every client site I build ships with this redirect in place. My own was the one I never went back to check. One rule fixed it in about five minutes. If it can slip past someone who does this for a living, it is worth two minutes to check yours.
This is one piece of a bigger picture. If you want to check everything at once, run the 30-minute online presence audit, which scores your whole setup.
What should the fix look like?
One permanent 301 redirect, from every other version to your chosen one, in a single step. Then make sure everything you control points to that same address.
Your fix list:
- Redirects: all three extra versions go straight to the main one. No chains where a visitor bounces through two or three addresses first.
- Canonical tags: every page names itself using the main version.
- Your sitemap: lists only the main version.
- Your listings: your Google Business Profile, Facebook, Yelp and chamber listing all use the exact same address.
- Search Console: set it up as a “domain property,” which covers all four versions in one report.
Who does it depends on your setup. It might be a setting in your hosting panel, a rule in Cloudflare, or a few lines from your developer. Google’s own guide to 301 redirects covers the details if you’re curious.
If your site uses Cloudflare: go to Rules, create a Redirect Rule from the “Redirect from WWW to root” template, and set these values. This is the exact rule now running on aiwhirks.com.
- Request URL:
https://www.yoursite.com/* - Target URL:
https://yoursite.com/${1} - Status code: 301
- Preserve query string: on
The ${1} keeps the rest of the address, so a visitor to an inner page lands on that same page, not your homepage.
If you do switch versions, redirect every old page to its matching new page, not everything to the homepage. Sending all your old pages to the homepage throws away the history each page built.
What else hides in a setup like this?
If this check turned up a problem, it is rarely the only one. The same set-and-forget setup tends to hide missing page titles, a stale sitemap or a slow mobile site.
The guide to why a website gets no traffic walks through those next. For the full local picture, start with the St. Augustine small business SEO guide.
Next step: make sure Google sees one version of you
You now know more about your site’s setup than most business owners in St. Augustine and St. Johns County do. If the check turned up two copies, or you’d rather not dig through redirects yourself, send me your web address. I’ll tell you how it’s set up and what it takes to fix.
See how AIwhirks handles technical SEO for local businesses →