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How to Use WWW Redirect Checker to Test URL Redirections

Let's start with a seemingly simple and almost philosophical question. What is your website's address? You might quickly answer with something like, mywebsite.com. But your friend, when they are talking about your site, might refer to it as www.mywebsite.com. To a normal, everyday human being, these two addresses look like they are the exact same thing. They are just two, slightly different ways of referring to the same, single place on the internet.

But here’s the secret. To a search engine, like Google, these are not the same thing at all. In the cold, hard, and literal logic of a search engine robot, mywebsite.com and www.mywebsite.com are two, completely separate and totally distinct websites.

If you don't handle this one, small, technical detail correctly, you can cause a huge amount of confusion for the search engines, and you can end up with a serious "duplicate content" problem that can significantly harm your rankings. You are, in effect, splitting all of your hard-won, SEO power between two, different addresses. The correct and the only professional way to handle this is with something called a "redirect." You need to choose one, single version of your address as your "official" one, and you need to have the other one automatically and permanently forward all of your visitors and all of the search engines to it. But how do you know if this crucial, behind-the-scenes redirection is actually set up and is working correctly? You use a simple, an instant, and an incredibly useful online checker.

The Tale of Two Websites: WWW vs. Non-WWW

To really appreciate why this is such a critical and a foundational, technical SEO issue, we first need to understand that www.mywebsite.com and mywebsite.com are, in the eyes of a server, technically two, different "subdomains."

If you have a situation where a visitor is able to access your website's homepage at both of these different addresses, then the search engines can get very, very confused. They will have a number of difficult questions to answer. Which one of these two, identical-looking pages should they actually put in their index? Which one of these two, different URLs should they show to a user in the search results?

This confusion can lead to your valuable "link equity," which is the powerful, SEO value that you get from all of your backlinks, being split between two, different versions of your site. This will effectively dilute your SEO authority and it can significantly weaken your ability to be able to rank. The best analogy is to think of it like you have two, different, official postal addresses for the exact same house. The post office is going to get confused. Some of your mail might get delivered to one address, some of it might get delivered to the other, and some of it might just get lost in the confusion. You need to be able to go to the post office and you need to tell them, with absolute certainty, "This is my one, and my only, official address. Please forward all of my mail there."

Picking a Side: Which Version is Better?

So, this, of course, leads us to the next and the most obvious question: "Okay, I get it. I need to pick one. But which one should I choose? Is the www version better for SEO than the non-www version?"

The modern, and the very clear, answer to that question, here in 2025, is that it does not matter at all.

From a purely technical, SEO perspective, Google has stated, very clearly and very publicly, that it does not have any kind of a preference between the two. The choice of whether you want to use the www version or the non-www version of your domain is now a purely personal or a branding preference. The only thing, and I mean the only thing, that truly matters is that you pick one and that you stick with it. You need to choose one of these versions to be your "canonical" or your "preferred" version, and then you must permanently redirect the other, non-preferred version to it. Consistency is the absolute and the only key.

The Magic of the 301 Redirect

So, how do we actually perform this magical, and this permanent, forwarding? We do it by using a special, and a very powerful, instruction called a 301 redirect.

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect. It is a specific, server status code that your web server will send to a visitor's web browser and to the search engine robots. In the simplest terms, this code says, "Hey, just so you know, the page or the address that you were looking for has moved, permanently. The new, the official, and the one and only correct address is over here."

To go back to our postal service analogy, a 301 redirect is like the official, "change of address" form that you would fill out with the post office. It tells them to automatically and to permanently forward all of your mail to your new and your correct home. And, just as importantly, a 301 redirect will also pass almost all of the "link equity," or the SEO value, from the old URL to the new one. This is exactly why it is so incredibly important for your SEO.

The Old Way: The "Type and See" Method

For many, many years, the only way for a normal, non-technical website owner to be able to check if their redirects were working was a very simple and a not entirely reliable, manual method.

You would open up your web browser. You would then manually and very carefully type in the non-www version of your address, for example, mywebsite.com, and you would hit the enter key. You would then have to look very closely at the address bar in your browser to see if it had automatically and magically changed to the www version. Then, you would have to do the exact same thing in reverse.

Now, the problem with this method is that it will only tell you if a redirect is happening. It will not tell you what kind of a redirect it is. Is it that crucial and that SEO-friendly, permanent 301 redirect? Or is it a temporary, 302 redirect, which does not pass along as much of the SEO value and which is not the correct choice for this situation? And on top of that, your own, personal web browser can sometimes be fooled by its own, internal cache, and it might not be showing you the real, live result.

The Smart, Technical Solution: The WWW Redirect Checker

This pressing need for a fast, for an accurate, and for a truly technical verification of your website's redirect setup is exactly why a WWW Redirect Checker is an absolutely essential and an invaluable tool for any kind of a technical, SEO audit.

This type of tool is a specialized and a very clever utility that is designed to act like a web browser, but one that is paying very close attention to all of the invisible, "server headers." The workflow is an absolute dream of simplicity. You just go to the tool. You will see one, single, and very clear input box. You just have to type in your domain name. You click the "Check" button, and the tool will then, in the background, attempt to visit both the www and the non-www versions of your site. It will then report back to you on exactly what happened. It will show you the full, and the sometimes complex, redirect chain, and, most importantly of all, it will tell you the exact, HTTP status code for that redirect. And the fantastic thing is, with the kind of powerful and user-friendly tools you can find on toolseel.com, you can get this crucial, technical, SEO check-up in a matter of seconds.

What to Look For in a Great Redirect Checking Tool

As you begin to explore these wonderfully simple and useful tools, you'll find that the best and most trustworthy ones are designed to be fast, accurate, and incredibly easy to use. They are built to give you a clear and an unambiguous answer to your question. A really top-notch online tool for checking your redirects should have a few key features. It should include:

• A simple and a very clear interface that only requires you to be able to enter your domain name to be able to get started.
   
• A comprehensive check that will test for both the www to the non-www redirect, and also for the non-www to the www redirect.
   
• A clear, a simple, and an easy-to-understand final result that tells you if a redirect is correctly in place.
   
• The fantastic ability for the tool to be able to show you the full, and the sometimes multi-step, redirect path, or the "chain."
   
• The absolutely crucial and non-negotiable functionality to be able to display the final, HTTP status code of the redirect, for example, a "301 Moved Permanently" or a "302 Found."
   

A tool with these features is an invaluable asset for any serious and for any modern website owner.

The Final Human Check: What Does a "Good" Result Look Like?

Now for the golden rule, the part of the process that turns a simple, raw data report into a real and an actionable, SEO insight. The online tool has done its job. It has given you the data. Now, your job is to be the one who interprets what that data actually means.

A "good" and a perfect result is when one version of your site your chosen, "canonical" version shows a "200 OK" status, which means that it is the final and the correct destination. And the other version of your site shows a "301 Moved Permanently" status, and it is correctly redirecting to that first one.

A "bad" result is if both of your different versions show a "200 OK" status. This is the classic, duplicate content problem that we talked about earlier, and you need to fix it immediately. Another "bad" result is if you see that your site is using a "302 Found" redirect. This is a temporary redirect, and it is not the right choice for this situation. It can be very bad for your SEO, and you need to ask your developer to change it to a proper, 301 redirect.

One Website, One Address, One Powerful SEO Signal

Let’s be honest, having a single and a canonical version of your domain name whether you choose the www version or the non-www version is a fundamental and an absolutely critical part of good, modern, technical SEO. A redirect checker is the only, truly reliable way for you to be able to test that your 301 redirects are set up correctly and that they are working exactly as you expect them to.

So, it's time to stop confusing Google and it's time to stop diluting your own, precious, SEO power. It is time to take control of your one, true, digital address. By using a simple online tool to be able to check your www redirects, you can ensure that you are sending a single, a clear, and a powerful signal to the search engines. It is a wonderfully simple and a foundational check that can have a surprisingly big and positive impact on your website's long-term, SEO performance. So go ahead, check your site.