I have an SEO guy that is confusing me. He mentioned that in Google Webmaster Tools I should verify the www version of a site along with the non www (the non www is already verified). So I informed him there’s no need because I use .htaccess to 301 redirect all www urls to the non-www url for canonical reasons (like Matt Cutts recommends). He tells me that I still should verify both versions.
I see verifying as me telling Google I want them to index things on a certain domain/subdomain…and the whole point of the canonical is that I DON’T want them indexing www subdomain urls! Not to mention, if every request to the www subdomain is redirected, is it even possible to verify it?
Should I try to do this or should I not verify the www?
That “SEO guy” is an “SEO moron”. If your site can be pulled up with the www and without it you are technically serving up duplicate content and is exactly what Google doesn’t want. You are much smarter then that “SEO guy”. You’re doing it the right way. Don’t change a thing.