by JoMo
20 replies
My dad and I have been working on our plaque site, trying to get changes ready for the redesign, and he asked me why some sites have the "www" before them and others don't. And I couldn't answer. I feel kinda stupid now. I think that is stands for world wide web, but that's as much as I know.

What is the significance of the "www"?
#www
  • Profile picture of the author The Pension Guy
    You can read about the history of it:
    World Wide Web - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    (as you will find it out: it is a "subdomain" and The use of such subdomain names is not required by any technical or policy standard...)
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  • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
    It refers to worldwide web.

    With a domain name, you might use several variations for different purposes. Your mail server may be mail.domain.dom. If you have your own name servers, they might be ns1.domain.dom and ns2.domain.dom. An FTP site might be ftp.domain.dom. And so on.

    You might also give different servers names: america.domain.dom, europe.domain.dom, myserver.domain.dom, home.domain.dom, work.domain.dom, games.domain.dom, etc.

    So, when it came to web sites, people used www.domain.dom to distinguish between other services.

    Nowadays, most uses are for websites, so the www isn't a necessity and some people have just dropped it. Actually, it wasn't a necessity in the past either; it was more or less simply used for identification purposes.
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Hancox
    For my newer sites (especially blogs), I've dropped the WWW altogether. Here's why...

    (a) It's 4 extra characters on Twitter (www.) if you want to use your URL in a Twitter message.

    (b) It's 4 extra characters on Google when they do their search summaries, and your post comes up like this...

    http://copysnips.com/copywriting/men...s-better-copy/

    ... then more of the entire URL can be seen.

    (c) I think one day, the "www." part will just disappear, so I'm just getting in there early. (For example, how many people type "http://" any more? That's where "www." will also go, one day.
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    • Profile picture of the author The Pension Guy
      Originally Posted by Paul Hancox View Post


      (c) I think one day, the "www." part will just disappear, so I'm just getting in there early. (For example, how many people type "http://" any more? That's where "www." will also go, one day.
      I think exactly the same about it: it will disappear.
      However, the http:// is needed when you make an anchor tag (<a href=...) - we see a lot of not working links because people leave it out even from anchor tags
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  • Profile picture of the author JoMo
    Ah, well that just makes sense.

    I am learning so much about the interwebs. I just might even be a goober one day.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lloyd Buchinski
    I really don't like all the ws and just work with domain.com. I was surprised though that when I wrote one out for people on a piece of note paper, a couple didn't understand it and didn't know they could just type that in the address bar and hit enter. They put it in the search box and clicked on possibilities that came up. They didn't realize that it was a complete url.
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    The old standard for domains is:

    protocol_system.name.tld

    tld is like com, net, org, etc....

    name is like ebay, amazon, microsoft.

    protocol_system is like www, ftp, mail, etc....

    IDEALLY, the name should default to the most widely used, which is often www.

    BUT, once you get past name, it is YOUR responsibility to have that setup. Some systems default to name, some to name AND dot name Home, and some to either.

    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author The Pension Guy
      Originally Posted by seasoned View Post

      The old standard for domains is:

      protocol_system.name.tld

      tld is like com, net, org, etc....

      name is like ebay, amazon, microsoft.

      protocol_system is like www, ftp, mail, etc....
      Sorry, I have to contradict you: www is not a protocol system - http (hypertext transfer protocol) is the protocol system for websites.
      As it was stated several times above: www is just a subdomain.

      Internet Protocol Suite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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      • Profile picture of the author seasoned
        Originally Posted by The Pension Guy View Post

        Sorry, I have to contradict you: www is not a protocol system - http (hypertext transfer protocol) is the protocol system for websites.
        As it was stated several times above: www is just a subdomain.

        Internet Protocol Suite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
        MAIL isn't the NAME of a protocol either. OK, I oversimplified, but I covered the idea.

        BTW the person owning a domain name owns ALL domain names under it. so amazon could have

        amazon.com or a.b.c.d.e.f.amazon.com

        And it is BEST for YOU to use only www.name.tld, because everything assumes that is what it will be. But you should STILL have amazon.tld in case someone types that in.

        Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author garyv
    Don't know about anyone else, but we've found that our adwords click thrus are better if we keep the www - infront of our domain names in the ad.
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  • Profile picture of the author The Pension Guy
    garyv,

    I can imagine that since in off-line ads the references to website almost always start with "www", which means the general population associates websites with www.
    It is a kind of expectation that a URL starts with www. It happened to me that I wanted to give a URL through the phone and the conversation went something like this:
    Me: do you have a pen to write it down?
    Partner: ... wait a minute - now I have.
    Me: then I will spell it...
    Partner: OK, so www
    Me: no www!
    Partner: what do you mean?
    Me: no need for it. Just "example.com".
    Partner: hmm.
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    • Profile picture of the author raiko
      I've always been curious how it affects backlinking. If you have a blog at "name.com" and a backlink containing "www.name.com" is the backlink counted? Are they interchangeable? Does it even matter?
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      • Profile picture of the author dv8
        Originally Posted by raiko View Post

        I've always been curious how it affects backlinking. If you have a blog at "name.com" and a backlink containing "www.name.com" is the backlink counted? Are they interchangeable? Does it even matter?
        Also curious about this.

        Originally Posted by The Pension Guy View Post

        As I said: you don't need to set up anything. It is there as soon as you bought a hosting package.
        Try 'http://warriorforum.com/' and 'http://www.warriorforum.com/'
        They both should work

        You just make sure that you are using only one: either with www or without. And redirect with .htaccess.
        If I am understanding you correctly, my anchor text links should be the same as whatever my site is. Is this correct?

        Because my site is domain.com but I have been using the www.domain.com for my backlinks. Will they be counted?
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        • Profile picture of the author Eric Lorence
          WWW is not necessary for anything, and you never need to use it.

          Even browsers "auto-complete" URL's without it.

          As anchor text, using the the domain is redundant anyway, and doesn't help

          As far as directing domains from the registrar...when you set your nameservers to point to your hosting account IP's or the host's name server domains such as "ns1.hostingserver(.)com" and "ns1.hostingserver(.)com (2 required)...any "subdomains" including "www" will default to your host.

          No other configuration at the domain registrar will be necessary.

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  • Profile picture of the author misterwrecker
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I first got on to the web I think we had to type "http://www.sampledomain.com" if not you would not be directed to the website. In AOL at least?
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  • Profile picture of the author The Pension Guy
    Yes, the correct way for linking is
    "http://example.com" or "http://www.example.com".

    They are NOT interchangeable: they are seen by the search engines as two different sites! When you set up a website you must decided which one you are going to use and stick to it. Always use only one. Google Webmastertools always is aking you which one do you prefer. You can also use htaccess to redirect the non-desired version to the one you want to be used.
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  • Profile picture of the author JoMo
    It would probably be a good idea to buy both and then redirect 1.
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  • Profile picture of the author The Pension Guy
    You don't have to "buy" both. Once you got a domain name - you own both. On most servers both URLs (i.e. 'example.com' and 'www.example.com') will work.
    What I am trying to explain that "www" is just a subdomain as it would be if you set up something like
    cats.example.com
    dogs.example.com
    stuff.example.com

    You do NOT have to buy "cats" and "dogs" and "stuff" - you create those subdomains on your hosting account. The "www" subdomain is created for you by default.
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  • Profile picture of the author JoMo
    I see. So it would make sense to setup both, and then redirect 1.
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  • Profile picture of the author The Pension Guy
    As I said: you don't need to set up anything. It is there as soon as you bought a hosting package.
    Try 'http://warriorforum.com/' and 'http://www.warriorforum.com/'
    They both should work

    You just make sure that you are using only one: either with www or without. And redirect with .htaccess.
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