How to Fix: WWW/non-WWW redirects correctly

WWW/non-WWW redirects correctly is a high-priority SEO check in the Technical Foundation category. It is unglamorous plumbing, but plumbing you get wrong floods everything downstream — which is exactly why it earns a high priority.

What this check is really about

Your site can be reached at both www.example.com and example.com. To a human they are obviously the same place. To a search engine they are two different hostnames, and to a server they can be two different sites serving identical content. This check confirms that one version is canonical and the other 301-redirects to it — permanently, at the server or WordPress level. It fails when both versions load independently with a 200 status, which means you are running two copies of your entire site.

The same logic extends to HTTP versus HTTPS. In 2026 the correct end state is one canonical hostname on HTTPS, with every other combination — www/non-www, http/https — funnelling into it through 301s. Four possible front doors, one that is actually open.

Why it matters for SEO

When both versions resolve, you split your own site in half. Inbound links land on whichever version the person happened to use, so your link authority is divided between two hostnames instead of concentrated on one. Google has to guess which is canonical, and its guess may not match yours. You can also end up with duplicate content across the two, and crawl budget wasted indexing the same pages twice. Consolidating to a single canonical host with clean 301s pulls all of that authority back into one place — it is one of the highest-return technical fixes precisely because it stops a leak that touches every page at once.

How to fix this in WordPress

Difficulty Level: EASY – This fix is straightforward and can typically be completed by anyone with basic WordPress knowledge.

Estimated Time: 10 min

1. Pick your canonical version and commit to it. Whether you choose www or non-www barely matters for SEO — consistency is the whole point. Most modern sites go non-www; pick one and never look back.
2. Set it in WordPress. Under Settings → General, make sure both the WordPress Address and Site Address use your chosen version on https://. This alone handles a lot of the redirecting.
3. Enforce it at the server. The robust fix lives above WordPress — a 301 rule in your .htaccess (Apache), server block (Nginx), or host control panel that redirects every non-canonical hostname and http request to the canonical https version.
4. Confirm the whole matrix. Test all four combinations — http://www, http:// non-www, https://www, https:// non-www — and verify each returns a single 301 to your canonical URL, not a chain of two or three redirects.
5. Tell Google. Make sure the canonical version is the one verified and set as your primary property in Search Console, and that your sitemap uses canonical URLs throughout.

Watch for redirect chains specifically — a hop from http-www to https-www to https-non-www wastes crawl signal and slows users. Aim for a single 301 to the final destination. When it is clean, clear your cache and re-run the SEO Roadmap audit to confirm the check passes.

Recommended Tools & Plugins

These tools can help you fix and prevent this issue:

• Yoast SEO – Comprehensive SEO plugin with built-in checks
• Rank Math – Feature-rich SEO plugin with detailed analysis
• Google Search Console – Free tool to monitor your site’s search presence
• SEO Roadmap – Complete SEO audit and action plan tool

What I would not do

• Do not use a 302 (temporary) redirect for this. It is a permanent decision — it must be a 301, or search engines will not consolidate authority.
• Do not leave redirect chains in place. Every extra hop is wasted crawl signal and slower load.
• Do not edit server config on production without a backup. A malformed .htaccess rule can take the whole site down.

This guide is part of the SEO Roadmap knowledge base – your complete resource for WordPress SEO optimization.