Using .htaccess to remove www canonical: should I still verify www and non-www in webmaster tools?

Question

I have an SEO guy that is confusing me. He mentioned that in Google Webmaster Tools I should verify the www version of a site along with the non www (the non www is already verified). So I informed him there's no need because I use .htaccess to 301 redirect all www urls to the non-www url for canonical reasons (like Matt Cutts recommends). He tells me that I still should verify both versions.

I see verifying as me telling Google I want them to index things on a certain domain/subdomain...and the whole point of the canonical is that I DON'T want them indexing www subdomain urls! Not to mention, if every request to the www subdomain is redirected, is it even possible to verify it?

Should I try to do this or should I not verify the www?

Answer 1

That "SEO guy" is an "SEO moron". If your site can be pulled up with the www and without it you are technically serving up duplicate content and is exactly what Google doesn't want. You are much smarter then that "SEO guy". You're doing it the right way. Don't change a thing.

Answer 2

Your SEO guy is not an 'SEO moron". You can verify both www prefix and 'non www' prefix in Google Web master tools no problem and then select which one is the preferred domain, www, or non www. You can not select a preferred domain in GWT without verifying both prefixes

Google explains this here:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=44231

Answer 3

You need to verify both to prove you are the owner of both, because technically with and without www are in fact different websites. www is just a sub-domain, and can point to a different site if need be.

So you must prove to Google you manage both. Then because Google knows you manage both, and have the authority to specify what to do with both domains, you then tell Google the site is to use www (or not, whichever you want), and you keep the redirects.

Google will not index a domain that 301 redirects to another domain.

I do agree that its not nice to have both www and non-www listed in webmaster separately though. But you could in theory have loads and loads of different sites as sub-domains, so they must be treated as different sites by Google.