Why Does Google Treat "www" & "no-www" As Different? The "Minus Thirty" Penalty?

"Hi guys … why does Google want to treat the ""www"" and non-""www"" versions of a website as different sites? Isn't it pretty obvious that they are one site?

Or am I missing something? Thanks for your help."

[kensmith]

They can be 2 different sites, most of the time they are the same but not always. I used to have an example of this, but no longer do. It is easy to set up a 301 redirect from the version you don't want to the version you do want so you don't have any problems with Google. Ex. redirect the non-www version to the www.