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Tuesday, June 18, 2019
As we progress with
the migration
to the new Search Console experience, we will be saying farewell to one of our settings: preferred
domain.
It's common for a website to have the same content on multiple URLs. For example, it might have
the same content on https://example.com/ as on
https://www.example.com/index.html. To make things easier, when our
systems recognize that, we'll pick one URL as the "canonical" for Search. You can still tell us
your preference in multiple ways if there's something specific you want us to pick (see
paragraph below). But if you don't have a preference, we'll choose the best option we find. Note
that with the deprecation we will no longer use any existing Search Console preferred domain
configuration.
You can find detailed explanations on how to tell us your preference in the
Consolidate duplicate URLs
help center article. Here are some of the options available to you:
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eGoogle Search Console is retiring the preferred domain setting as part of its migration to a new experience.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eGoogle will automatically select a canonical URL for websites with duplicate content on multiple URLs, but webmasters can still indicate their preference using methods like rel="canonical", sitemaps, or 301 redirects.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eExisting preferred domain configurations in Search Console will no longer be used after this change.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eDetailed information about managing canonical URLs can be found in the "Consolidate duplicate URLs" help center article.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFeedback on this change is welcomed through Twitter or the Google Search Console forum.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["The \"preferred domain\" setting in the Search Console is being removed. Websites with duplicate content on multiple URLs will have one URL chosen as the \"canonical\" for search. Users can still indicate their preferred URL using `rel=\"canonical\"` link tags or HTTP headers, sitemaps, or `301` redirects. If no preference is indicated, the system will automatically select the best option. The change means any current preferred domain configurations will be ignored. Feedback can be submitted through Twitter or the forum.\n"],null,["# Bye Bye Preferred Domain setting\n\nTuesday, June 18, 2019\n\n\nAs we progress with\n[the migration](/search/blog/2018/01/introducing-new-search-console)\nto the new Search Console experience, we will be saying farewell to one of our settings: preferred\ndomain. \n\n\nIt's common for a website to have the same content on multiple URLs. For example, it might have\nthe same content on `https://example.com/` as on\n`https://www.example.com/index.html`. To make things easier, when our\nsystems recognize that, we'll pick one URL as the \"canonical\" for Search. You can still tell us\nyour preference in multiple ways if there's something specific you want us to pick (see\nparagraph below). But if you don't have a preference, we'll choose the best option we find. Note\nthat with the deprecation we will no longer use any existing Search Console preferred domain\nconfiguration.\n\n\nYou can find detailed explanations on how to tell us your preference in the\n[Consolidate duplicate URLs](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls)\nhelp center article. Here are some of the options available to you:\n\n1. Use `rel=\"canonical\"` link tag on HTML pages\n2. Use `rel=\"canonical\"` HTTP header\n3. Use a sitemap\n4. Use `301` redirects for retired URLs\n\n\nSend us any feedback either through\n[Twitter](https://twitter.com/googlesearchc) or\n[our forum](https://support.google.com/webmasters/community).\n\nPosted by\n[Daniel Waisberg](https://www.danielwaisberg.com), Search Advocate"]]
