www vs non-www Checker
Decide once: www or apex. This tool checks both hostnames over http and https, reports which one resolves and which one 301s, and confirms Google is seeing the canonical form you intended.
Hostname verdict
Tells you in one sentence which host is canonical and which redirects.
Full chain
Shows the hop pattern for every variant so you can spot misconfigured rules.
SEO consolidation
Confirms canonical and X-Robots-Tag agree with the redirect target.
What it does
One canonical host, four URL variants
Every site has at minimum four hostnames in play: http on apex, http on www, https on apex, https on www. Three of them should redirect to one canonical URL. This tool checks each variant and tells you whether your setup is consistent.
www vs apex verdict
Trace either variant and see whether it 301s to the other. The chain rendering makes the canonical host obvious at a glance.
HTTPS alongside hostname
Combine the host check with HTTPS enforcement: http://example.com should 301 to https://example.com (or whichever variant is canonical) in one hop.
Canonical-tag verification
After the redirect chain, we inspect the rel=canonical on the final page. If it disagrees with the redirect target, Google will get mixed signals.
X-Robots-Tag inspection
Surface X-Robots-Tag on every hop. A noindex on the canonical host quietly drops the URL from the index.
Bot vs human
Re-run with Googlebot to confirm the bot sees the same canonical decision your users do.
Programmatic check
Same engine at /api/check. Add a regression test that fails if the canonical host ever drifts.
How it works
Three steps, one canonical answer
Test both hostname variants and read the verdict.
- 1
Paste either hostname
Test the variant you suspect is wrong (typically the one Google indexes when you did not want it to).
- 2
Trace the chain
A correct setup is one 301 from the non-canonical variant to the canonical one. We follow every hop and render them visually.
- 3
Confirm the canonical tag
On the final page, check that rel=canonical matches the URL you landed on. Disagreement is the most common cause of "Google indexed the wrong URL."
Who uses it
Pick one form, then prove it
Anyone managing a site eventually has to decide www vs apex — and prove the decision is enforced.
SEO managers consolidating duplicates
Google sees www.example.com and example.com as two sites unless you redirect. This tool confirms the redirect is in place and the canonical tag agrees.
DevOps choosing the canonical host
New domain, no traffic yet — decide which variant is canonical and enforce it from day one. Apex has DNS limitations; www has cookie-scoping advantages. Pick once.
Agencies onboarding a new client
First-day audit: does the client site enforce one canonical host? If not, they are dividing their link equity across two domains.
Engineers after a DNS change
After adding a new ALIAS or ANAME record, verify both apex and www still resolve and the redirect direction is what you intended.
Compliance reviewers
Some compliance frameworks (PCI, healthcare) require a single canonical URL for the user-facing app. Use this to evidence the setup.
Newsletter teams
Sharing example.com vs www.example.com in different campaigns? Verify both forms redirect to the canonical URL — otherwise you split analytics and indexing.
Best practices
How to choose and enforce a canonical host
Five rules that prevent the SEO and analytics fallout from inconsistent hostnames.
looks_one Choose once, choose early
Decide www vs apex on day one. Changing later is possible but introduces 6-12 months of mixed signals while Google reindexes.
lock Bundle the choice with HTTPS
A correct setup redirects all three variants (http://apex, http://www, https://non-canonical) to the canonical https URL in a single 301 each.
travel_explore Make rel=canonical agree with the redirect
The most common silent bug: redirects say "go to www" but the canonical tag on the destination page says "the real URL is apex." Google chooses one, often not the one you wanted.
dns Apex has DNS constraints
You cannot CNAME the apex domain. If you need CDN failover at the apex, your provider must support ALIAS or ANAME records. www has no such restriction.
cookie Cookies are scoped to the host
A cookie set on example.com is sent to www.example.com (by default) but not the other way. Picking apex as canonical and setting cookies there is the safest pattern.
FAQ
Common www vs non-www questions
Does it matter which one I choose? expand_more
For SEO, no — Google treats both equally as long as you pick one and redirect the other. For DNS, yes: the apex domain has stricter constraints (no CNAME at the apex), so www is often the easier choice if you need CDN flexibility. The wrong move is using both interchangeably.
How do I tell Google which one I prefer? expand_more
Two signals must agree: (1) a 301 redirect from the non-canonical variant to the canonical one; (2) a rel=canonical tag on the final page pointing to the canonical URL. Submit only the canonical version in your sitemap. Google Search Console no longer has a "preferred domain" setting — the redirect plus canonical tag are the only signals.
What if Google has already indexed the wrong one? expand_more
Add the 301 redirect and matching canonical tag. Within a few weeks to months, Google will replace the wrong URL with the canonical one in its index. Make sure not to remove the redirect during that window — pulling it before consolidation is complete resets the clock.
Can I serve different content on www and non-www? expand_more
Technically yes (they are different hostnames), but for a primary marketing site this is almost always a mistake. Google will treat them as separate sites, split rankings between them, and probably penalize duplicate content. The www subdomain is reserved by convention to mirror the apex.
Why does my www variant load slower than the apex? expand_more
Two likely causes: the www variant is doing an extra redirect hop on every request, or the CDN at the apex uses an ALIAS record while www goes through a CNAME with slower DNS resolution. The chain rendering in this tool surfaces the extra hop; a DNS lookup tool will confirm the second.
Should the redirect be 301 or 302? expand_more
301. The choice between www and apex is permanent — 302 would tell Google "this is temporary, keep the old URL indexed," which is the opposite of what you want.
Does this tool check all four variants in one click? expand_more
The single-URL form checks one variant per run. To test all four (http+www, http+apex, https+www, https+apex), run four traces. The bulk checker at /bulk lets you paste all four into one batch and export results as CSV.
Confirm your canonical host
Paste either www or apex URL above and see which one redirects, which one resolves, and whether the canonical tag agrees.
north Check a hostname