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up vote 4 down vote favorite

I need to remove a URL "foo" at www.example.com/foo.

But when I type the URL under "Remove URL" and hit continue, on the next page I see the URL changed to

http://example.com/www.example.com/foo (This is not the URL I need to remove.)

Instead of:

www.example.com/foo

I have no clue why this is happening. Any help appreciated.

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2 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

First, make sure you're giving the full URL, including http://. Although you might think www.example.com is a website, it could just as easily be a filename on another website.

Also make sure you are submitting the correct domain for the GWT profile. http://www.example.com and http://example.com are different sites. If GWT is autocompleting to http://example.com... then I would assume you're on the non-www profile. So either submit the non-www URL here, or to to the www profile and submit the www URL there.

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1  
As you rightly pointed out, I have added only example.com (non-www version) to GWT. example.com (www-version) and example.com (non-www version) are different sites. But thats the case with every single website on the internet. So does that mean everyone has to add 2 different url versions to GWT? – user11221 Nov 7 '11 at 15:49
Does that also mean 2 versions of sitemaps have to be generated for both www- and non-www versions of URLs every time, and sitemaps updated at 2 places? – user11221 Nov 7 '11 at 15:56
Just to add to my previous comment, the site has a 301 redirect from the non-www version to the www version. – user11221 Nov 7 '11 at 16:11
1  
@user11221 No, you don't need 2 profiles for a site in GWT. If you are redirecting non-www to www then just make a profile for the www version, and remove the non-www one (since it doesn't really exist as a site). And you don't need sitemaps for both, just make sure your sitemap shows the preferred canonical URLs i.e. the www versions. – DisgruntledGoat Nov 7 '11 at 16:33
Thanks @DisgruntledGoat. One last question- the site, for a long time, been at the non-www version, which means there is quite some data in GWT for this version. (There is ZERO data for the www-version.) In a recent major update to the site, the www version has been made the preferred version (for no reason). If the non-www version is deleted from GWT, would it affect in any way? – user11221 Nov 7 '11 at 17:38
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up vote 2 down vote

You need to add the www version as a separate site to google webmaster tools. Google is treating them as such.

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