www.site.com vs. http://site.com

[Onestop]

Which is the better option when deciding where to 301 redirect to prevent canonicalization? I touched on the subject here:
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...ad.php?t=25102

Aussiewebmaster favors the http:// version with no www. I have actually read the exact opposite. Redirect everything to www. because more people type it in than not. I don't have the links at my immediate disposal, but I could have sworn I read it right here on SEW. I realize the best option is to do the mod rewrite on the server, but that isn't an option in my case.


Am I confused here? Anyone know of any definitive studies?

[AussieWebmaster]

What they type in is the type in traffic - and if they use the www in the href then it gets passed to the non www which is more often used in the anchor text

[Onestop]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

What they type in is the type in traffic - and if they use the www in the href then it gets passed to the non www which is more often used in the anchor text

Aussie,

The http:// passes on to the www. as well. Having said that would you not want to base the decision on where the majority of your traffic comes from (type in vs. backlink)?

[AussieWebmaster]

when you do the 301 it all goes to same place so not that big of a deal - the main thing is to make sure you cover all possibilities - domain.com/index.html etc also need to be ion there