I like bookmarks.I have tons of them. I use a web-based service called FoxMarks to keep my laptop and my desktop bookmarks synchronised. However…
Quite often I find that it’s quicker to type in a domain name rather than hunting for the bookmark. If it’s a site I go to regularly, like James Brausch’s blog, it’s easy to start typing ‘jamesbrausch.com’. By the time I get to ‘ja’, Firefox offers me the full URL in a drop-down box, so I can press the down arrow key and then ‘Enter’.
This works for plenty of websites. However, some South African companies don’t play along. If you want to get to their sites, you have to type in ‘www.’ at the start of the URL. Here are some examples (all big corporates):
telkom.co.za
nedbank.co.za
makro.co.za
All of these work with the ‘www.’ but not without.
It seems to me that if you have a big company, you should make it as easy as possible for your customers to find you.
Taylor Coburn has just released a great little video product which explains why you should always redirect your visitors, so that they access the same page whether they use the ‘www.’ or not.
(If you’re quick, you can get it for $7).
Apart from the ‘ease of typing’ reason, there are serious search engine implications if you don’t use a redirect.
In Taylor’s videos, he explains the reasons for redirecting, and shows exactly how to do it using his ‘Process to Profits’ blog as an example.
One quibble I have is that the redirect scripts he gives only work on Apache servers. If your web host uses IIS, you’ll have to find another way to do it.
Some other points to consider:
1. Tim Bromhead has a simple explanation and some suggestions here: Which is better for your site: www or no www?
2. no-www.org gives some reasons for doing away with the ‘www’ in a URL. They also have a great little verification tool – just type in your URL and it’ll tell you if there’s a redirect in place or not.
3. On the opposite site, www.hm2k.com/articles/yes-www/ proposes that using ‘www.’ is a good thing.
4. James Brausch’s Nemeas software is quite clear about this – ‘www.’ is a positive ranking factor. Results for my blog (with no keyword) are:
75,http://www.lxmarketing.com/
-39,http://lxmarketing.com/
Also check out Mike Schinkel’s Well Designed URLs blog.
Cheers,
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My mugshot.