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Google's Matt Cutts said in the ongoing Mozilla penalty discussion at Google Webmaster Help that Google will generally send the webmaster tools notification to both the non-WWW and WWW verified Google Webmaster Tools account.
Matt Cutts said the reason is because even though "that example.com and www.example.com are different hostnames and technically could be different sites, but in practice they're almost always the same." Since that is the case, Matt said they send it to both verified accounts in most cases. Matt wrote:
We wanted to avoid the case where a site owner verifies www.example.com and then misses out on a message about example.com. So when we send a message about example.com, we typically send it to the verified owners for both example.com and www.example.com, just so a site owner doesn't miss out on getting a message.
Not only that, Matt said Google will "continue to look at ways to make the messages more concrete and actionable though." As they have been, but sometimes more details but not full details can be less confusing than fewer details.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
Comments:
Emma North
04/25/2013 02:49 pm
This is good to know, although I don't believe they have always done this. I saw a message late last year on one WMT account (either the www. or non-www.) and had nothing on the other. I think it's right that they do this as it is very uncommon for a www. and non-www. domain to be different sites.
Faisal Kaleem
04/26/2013 12:43 am
I was quite confused on www and non www practices but now i have cleared. Thx for sharing this
vijay mishra seo
04/26/2013 05:39 am
It is really about to confusing that example.com and www.example.com are different hostnames and technically could be different sites, but in practice they're almost always the same.
Jon Hogg
04/26/2013 09:20 am
Agree. Seen this too.
Microfiber
04/26/2013 01:59 pm
I really don't see how www and non-www can be different sites. If you register example.com, that's it. You have the domain. I've never seen GoDaddy ask if I wanted the www or non-www version. The whole topic is ridiculous.
Steve Smith
04/27/2013 08:51 am
It is really difficult to understand how a website with www and without www is different but i am still searching for the best example to get my query solved... huh !!
chaudhary amir
04/28/2013 06:51 pm
I really dont know about this if you want domain there is nothing to asked you that what you want www or non-www.Thanks for sharing this kind of information
David
04/29/2013 11:14 am
Good to know this, but I think Google should come up with a more concrete answer as to why they see the www and non-www as 2 different sites.