Moving a website to an address with the www prefix and back

A website can have multiple addresses: with and without the www prefix, as well as with the HTTP or HTTPS protocol. Examples: http://www.example.com, https://www.example.com, http://example.com, https://example.com. This means a single domain can have multiple addresses.

The Yandex robot treats such addresses as different websites. That's why they can be included in search results as separate websites. As a result, such addresses can compete with each other in search results. This may cause one of the addresses to lose traffic and fail to reach desired positions. This situation may remain unchanged until the robot determines that the content on the websites is the same. After that, they will be merged into a group of sites.

When merging, the main address that will continue to be included in the search will be selected automatically. You can speed up merging and specify the main website address by following the instructions below.

Merging sites into a group also allows you to transfer some accumulated metrics from the old site to the new one. For example, external links from the old site will be treated as external links of the new one. At the same time, on the External links page in Yandex Webmaster, you can see URLs specified on a third-party site. However, merging doesn't guarantee that the number of website pages in search results, the page ranking, or traffic will remain the same.

For Yandex, it doesn't matter if the website address contains the www prefix or not. It's usually possible to set preferences for that in website settings. Here are the instructions for the most popular platforms.

Why do I need the www prefix?

The www prefix (World Wide Web) came into use in the 1990s and indicated that the site could be displayed on the World Wide Web. To learn more, see this Wikipedia article.

Currently, the prefix doesn't affect the operation of websites, but is used in settings for many platforms.

Step 1. Add your old and new sites to Yandex Webmaster

Add your old and new sites to Yandex Webmaster and verify your rights to manage them. For more information, see Quick start.

Step 2. Check if the sites' content matches and they are available to the robot

Make sure that:

  • The sites' main content matches (text and graphics, contact information and so on).

  • The new address is not grouped with someone else’s site. If so, separate the sites. Separating sites is not necessary if:

    • The grouped sites differ only in protocol (HTTP/HTTPS).
    • The new URL is recognized as a secondary mirror of the site you are moving from.

  • The old and new URLs are available to the robot:

    • The server response takes less than 10 seconds and contains an HTTP status with the 200 OK code for the new URL and 200 OK or a redirection code (permanent or temporary) for the old URL.

      Check the server response

    • In the robots.txt files, the old and new domain are allowed for indexing by the Yandex robot. The robots.txt files must have the same content so the robot can use the same URLs for checking mirrors.

      You can also configure a redirect from the old site's robots.txt to the robots.txt of the new one. Then Yandex will use the target file. In this case, make sure that the directives in this robots.txt are correct for both sites.

      Check the robots.txt files

Step 3. Set redirection from the old URL to the new one

On your server, set a permanent or temporary redirect (for example, with a 301 or 302 HTTP code) from the old website's pages to the corresponding pages on the new website, which should be included in the search.

Make sure the redirect is set:

  • From the home page of the old site to the home page of the new one. This is necessary for a proper site move.
  • From the internal pages of the old site to the corresponding pages of the new one. This will transfer metrics to the new pages and help site visitors find the information they need.

If possible, don't set a redirect from all pages of the old site to the main page of the new one. Such redirects are inconvenient for users and, consequently, slow down the new site indexing by the Yandex robot.

To do this, add a link to the pages on the new site with the rel="canonical" attribute in the HTML or in the HTTP header of every page on the old site.

In some cases the robot treats this meta tag as a redirect with HTTP code 302. Use the meta tag for moving if other redirection methods don't suit you.

Step 4. Use the "Relocate site" tool»

The indexing bot will learn about the main address the next time it crawls the site. To speed up detection of changes, use the “Relocate site” tool:

  1. Go to Yandex Webmaster and choose the website you want to move from.

  2. On the Indexing → Relocate site page, submit your request in one of the following ways, depending on the type of migration:

    • To the domain with the "www" prefix — turn on the Add WWW option.
    • To the domain without a prefix — disable the Add WWW option.

  3. Click Save.

The change in the main site address takes several weeks. To receive notifications about the change in the main site address, subscribe to notifications.

After the main site address is changed, the new URL is included in the search.

Questions and answers

There is no “Relocate site” page in Yandex Webmaster

You can relocate the site that is currently the main mirror. You can check the main site address in the My Sites list in Yandex Webmaster. If the site is grouped with another and is its secondary mirror, separate them. In this case, Yandex Webmaster displays Separating mirrors instead of Site move. Then change the main site address according to the instructions above.

I followed the instructions and specified the main site address in Yandex Webmaster, but the secondary mirror is still present in the search. Why?

It will be in the search until the corresponding pages of the primary mirror are not indexed, even if you set a redirect. Then, the pages will be excluded from search results after several updates of the search databases.

Secondary mirror pages may still be stored in the indexing bot's database and displayed in Yandex Webmaster, but not in search results.

To keep track of search database updates, subscribe to notifications.

After changing the domain, the number of pages or their ranking decreased

If a new domain is already recognized as the main mirror, the number of site pages in the search results, their ranking or traffic can change. These changes can be seen over several search database updates.

See the recommendations in Site structure.

  • In the source code of the site that should become the main mirror contains the attribute rel="canonical". Delete it and submit the request for moving again.
  • The site is unavailable or responds with a long delay.
  • The sites' content doesn't match. Check if the internal page URLs and headers match.
  • The site moves to another domain zone without a redirect.
  • Site indexing is prohibited in the robots.txt file.
  • Violations of the Search rules are detected on the site. View the details on the Security and violations page in Yandex Webmaster and fix the errors. In two weeks, check that the message about the violation disappears from Yandex Webmaster, and re-send the request.
  • The request was sent from the site to move to.
  • Internal service error. Try sending the request later.
Request was sent by mistake

Select what the mistake in the request was:

The wrong site was selected for moving

If you selected the wrong site from the list on the Indexing → Relocate site page in Yandex Webmaster and submitted the request, it will be rejected after some time, and the site won't be moved.

You changed your mind and don't want to move the site, but the request is already sent

In this case, the request can be processed and the sites will be grouped as mirrors. You can't cancel the request. Wait for the changes to be applied in the search results and then move to the domain you need.

Why does the request take so long to process?

The site move request is fulfilled when the new site URL becomes the main mirror and is included in search results. This can take from a few weeks to months, depending on the relocation type, the speed at which the robot crawls the sites and the mirror updates in the search results.

Check whether the following conditions are met:

  • Both sites are available to the robot.
  • The old site address performs a redirect with a 301 or 302 HTTP code to the new one, which will be considered the main address.
  • The site move request in Yandex Webmaster has been processed.

If all conditions are met, the data will be updated automatically over time.

Learn more

Contact support

When you change a site’s main address or the secondary mirror, it usually takes about a month for the changes to appear in the search results. If you followed the instructions when moving or separating sites, but the changes didn't appear in the search results, contact support.

Tell us what your question is about so we can direct you to the right specialist:

The main mirror of the site may change if a redirect or the rel="canonical" attribute pointing to the site that became the main mirror is set on the old site pages. To avoid automatic selection of the main site address in the future, make sure that pages of all secondary mirrors redirect to the corresponding pages of the desired main address.

This means that the indexing bot has selected the main site address automatically. Specify the correct site URL for the robot, following the recommendations in the Moving a site to a new domain name section.

Main reasons why sites are not grouped:

  • On the site that you want to be the main address, the pages' source code contains the rel="canonical" attribute. Delete it and submit the request for moving again.
  • The site is unavailable or responds with a long delay.
  • The sites' content doesn't match. Check if the internal page URLs and headers match.
  • The site moves to another domain zone without a redirect.
  • Site indexing is prohibited in the robots.txt file.
  • Violations of the Search rules are detected on the site. View the details on the Security and violations page in Yandex Webmaster and fix the errors. In two weeks, check that the message about the violation disappears from Yandex Webmaster, and re-send the request.
  • The request was sent from the site to move to.
  • Internal service error. Try sending the request later.
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