To 301 or not to 301?

[jshites]

Here's the deal:

We have a directory site that has been up and running for 3 years. The site has done relatively well in Google's SERPS over that time period.

BD update comes along and we loose all positions w/ Google w/ exception of the home page... Just over 2 months. Yes, so did everyone else's site, get to the point!

Ok, over the last week, all of our pages/keywords have shown back up in the Google SERPS. The problem is that they all show up w/ out the www. in the url's/pages listed.
We also noticed that a Google search for our URL, yields a DMOZ listing that doesn't have the www. in the url.

This seems to be a "duplicate content" and 301 re-direct issue... The questions are:

1.) Without the 301 redirect, do you think our pages will continue to hold their positions in Google w/ out the www.'s not listed in the URL's... Keeping in mind that our page ranks haven't changed w/ or w/ out the www.'s appearing in the Google SERPS over the last two months.

2.) After placing the 301 Re-direct in the htaccess file, how long does it take for Google properly index the new www. url's... and have the same presence/rankings as their non - www. siblings ... Should we expect the www. urls to be dormant for a while?

Has anyone experienced any of the preceding problems?

[St0n3y]

Google may already assume the www. and non-www. pages are the same. You can do a backward link check to find out.

It might take a while. Don't hold your breath on that.

[pk_synths]

Google may already assume the www. and non-www. pages are the same. You can do a backward link check to find out.

It might take a while. Don't hold your breath on that.

Correct. If both have the same exact amount of backlinks than Google already made that association.

Also do a site:domain.com and site:www.domain.com search and see what the major difference is. If one has no results OR backlinks than that domain should be 301'd to the other.