When Domains Have No www.

[Fruit and Veg]

Sometimes domain names do not work without the www. preceeding it - eg. thesun.co.uk

I experienced this before with a site and all it took was a short phone call to the web host.

I'm just curious, why does this happen? Does it have a technical name? (or do you phone up and literally say 'Can you sort my domain out so it works wihtout the www.?').

Also, I take it only web hosts can fix this, but why would anyone have this option 'turned off'? Especially a fairly major site like The Sun (which is also funny in a 'white van man' kind of a way).

Anyone got any other examples too?

[Dreamquick]

It's just a DNS configuration thing, anyone with access to their DNS data can enable or disable the www/no-www functionality.

This happens because you actually buy the right to use "domain.ext" - the www prefix could be considered as either a sub-domain or the website service for that domain, so whoever does the initial DNS configuration has to set it up.

Normally your host just takes the easy way out and makes your site accessible with and without the www prefix, but if they dont set it up this way then only their preferred style will work.

- Tony

[bakedjake]

Anyone got any other examples too?

It's sort of a PITA if your host configures it to work transparently for both. We set up our clients to redirect non-www domains with a 301 to the www.domain in case anyone links to the domain without the www.

This keeps things clean, and makes it known that the www is the main and preferred access point for the site.

[dcrombie]

I always set up websites w/o www by default and add the www address as a CNAME [namesecure.com] - it only takes one line in the DNS entry after all. When people are advertising a web address on print, radio or tv it's often handy to shorten it. Not doing so often indicates a lack of competence more than anything else.

[Fruit and Veg]

Thanks guys.