: Google Webmaster Tools: Show results with "WWW", but SERP still showing without WWW I have a client site running under the root domain, e.g. without www: http://example.com. However, the client

@Jamie184

...the client requested that URLs be shown with WWW on the Google search results page. The actual URL used when accessing the website should still not show the

That's completely backward and is never going to work. If you are redirecting all traffic to the bare domain (without www) then that is the URL that's going to be shown in the SERPs, regardless of what you "try" to tell Google in the Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) property.

In setting the preferred domain as www and redirecting to the bare domain you are creating a conflict that Google must now resolve. Google is not going to return a redirected URL in the SERPs (other than maybe a site: search).

You need to decide what the canonical URL should be; with www or without (or something else entirely). Then use the canonical URL everywhere.

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