Lesson 4 · 13 min
To you, yoursite.com and www.yoursite.com are the same site. To a search engine, they can be two. When the canonical, the sitemap, and the links disagree, Google picks on its own which address to keep, and sometimes it picks the wrong one. This lesson closes that door.
Start the lesson
Goal: choose www or non-www and make canonical, sitemap, JSON-LD, and links use the same address.
Tap each block.
It doesn't matter whether you use www or not. What matters is making one choice and using it everywhere.
Tap each step.
See which version Search Console already shows most, and which one outside links use. Stick with that one.
Changing later is costly: choose once and write it down.
The redirect rule lives at your host, on the server, or on the CDN. Ask your provider for a permanent redirect from the version that doesn't count to the one that does.
Check with the X-ray: all three variations should end at the same address with 200.
In the X-ray, the canonical line for each page should show the address you chose. Empty or different is a finding.
Watch out for parts of the site generated by another system (blog, knowledge base, store): that's where the canonical tends to differ.
Open the sitemap and see whether the URLs use the same version. Do the same in the JSON-LD and in the menu and footer links.
If part of the HTML is generated by a script, fix it in the generator, or the fix disappears on the next build.
The canonical for /conhecimento/ was missing www, while the portal's sitemap used www. The fix went into the repository and the generator, with a note so no one undoes it.
The same commands the X-ray uses, one at a time.
for u in http://www.seusite.com/ https://seusite.com/ https://www.seusite.com/; do
echo "$u -> $(curl -4 -m 20 -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code} %{redirect_url}' "$u")"
donecurl -4 -m 20 -s https://www.seusite.com/pagina/ | grep -oE 'rel="canonical" href="[^"]*"'
Chosen version: <https://www.seusite.com> | place | page checked | address found | same? | |---|---|---|---| | canonical | </pagina/> | <...> | yes/no | | sitemap | <sitemap.xml> | <...> | yes/no | | JSON-LD (@id/url) | <home> | <...> | yes/no | | menu links | <home> | <...> | yes/no |
Redirects for www.inema.club in the 10/19/2026 X-ray:
http://www.inema.club/ -> 308 https://www.inema.club/ https://inema.club/ -> 308 https://www.inema.club/ https://www.inema.club/ -> 200
Both variations redirect permanently to the www version, which answers 200.
Use the raio-x.txt from lesson 2 as your starting point.
Run the curl loop (or the X-ray again) and see where each variation of the address goes.
Done when: all three variations end at the same address, with a 200 at the end; if not, the fix request was made to your hosting.
Fill in the table of the 4 places for the home page and for one inner page.
Done when: the table is complete and every row says "yes," or every "no" has its fix noted.
The explanation appears after you answer.
Question 1 of 4
What is the right choice: with www or without www?skill
Question 2 of 4
INEMA's /conhecimento/ had a canonical without www and a sitemap with www. The risk was:
Question 3 of 4
The page is generated by a script. Where do you fix the canonical?
Question 4 of 4
Which redirect code should you use between the variations?
Pick an answer. The explanation appears after you try.