To www or not www the domain*com

Twitter got me thinking

[walkman]

so is it www.webmasterworld.com or webmasterworld.com?

Twitter and the short-link focus has got me thinking. My domain is about as long as WebmasterWorld so I don't know. Google rankings and possibility of change is another factor but that aside, what do you think, www or just domain*com?

[trillianjedi]

It makes no difference, as long as you 301 the one you don't want to the one you do. Non-www has the benfit of brevity.

I would recommend sticking with what you have, and if you want to change now do it with new sites only.

Don't fix anything that isn't broken.

[maximillianos]

Great thread. I hadn't thought about this for years. From my experiences using the web, the address bar just doesn't look right if the www is missing. It is a balance thing. The URL appears balanced and symetrical in my mind. When it is missing, it just doesn't look right to me.

The distinction being I am referring to the address bar. I don't feel the same way about my domain when being referenced in an article, etc. But if it is a link or in the address bar. I get warm and fuzzy seeing those little w's. ;-)

So technically it is not required, but neither is a .com domain. But everyone agrees folks are more use to .com domains and more comfortable with them. In my opinion, this falls into that same comfort category.

I have no data to support this. Just opinion.

[pageoneresults]

www is like the <font> element around here - ya'll just won't let go of it! :)

And no, I would not recommend retrofitting an existing site with non-www. I'm referring to new sites and those that may undergo a rewrite. Might as well kill two birds with one stone as they say.

[bwnbwn]

nope me not say dub-dub-dub when I give out my web address pageoneresults fact is I don't even give out my web address..... My domain name is a good one for the nitch I am in real good one but it is 14 characters (yes not counting the www or the http:// or the .com) sooooo I bought an abbreviated term of it (5 characters) and 301 it to my http://www.example.com/ :) This makes it so much easier to work with.

I as well have 1000's of pages not a single one truncating in the SERPs as well with the www Talk about clean ya baby....

[mcavic]

Whatever you do, just make sure that one redirects to the other using a 301 (even on a Microsoft server). That way, your SE listings will be consolidated, and if a user switches from www to non-www, they'll keep their cookies.

[albo]

I've gotten in the habit of using A record for domain.com, then CNAMEs for www.domain.com and "*.domain.com" and MX for mail.domain.com as appropriate for the host...

...just (1) to save visitors some typing and (2) because some are "used to" typing "www"...

...except in those rare cases where a subdomain is hosted elsewhere, such as GAfYD (GOOG apps for mail - MX ... or calendar, docs, start-page, etc. - all CNAMEd)

My registrar's name-servers handle that arrangement just fine.

[yaix2]

If you use www and set it as cookie path, then you can serve images and other static files from a different sub domain and avoid sending your cookie data every time you request your images, js files, css, etc.

[TheMadScientist]

I use www and will continue to use it, even on new sites...

The spacing and the dots separating the domain name from the http:// make the actual domain name easier for the eye, which uses 'outlines', to read at glance.

The reason spelling mistakes can often go unnoticed in known text has to do with the way the eye works and the way people read. If you don't believe me on how the eyes and reading work, do a bit of research... I'll be sticking with the www because I believe the domain name is much more readable at a glance when separated from the clutter of the protocol.

BTW: Happy New Year Everyone!

[g1smd]

So tell me, does everyone still say dub-dub-dub when giving out web addresses verbally? Come on now, fess up!

I'll tell 'em the site is

example.com

.

If that is exactly what they type, they will get a 301 redirect to

www.example.com/

and the site will appear.

If they are linking, they are most likely to cut the address from the browser URL bar, and paste in elsewhere, so they'll have the correct URL right there.

If they type

www.example.com

then they are already on the right page.

[true_INFP]

Try these well-known brands. All of them redirect to www. They know very well what they are doing and why.

google.com
facebook.com
microsoft.com
bing.com
apple.com
cnn.com
bbc.co.uk
sony.com
yahoo.com

[KenB]

I'd disagree that well-known brands using www. adds credence to using it instead of dropping it. Just because they do it doesn't mean it is preferable to use www. on a new site. One reason some of them are using it is because they are old websites thus there is a built in inertia to keep doing it the old way.

I'd actually say that big brands concatenating to www. are part of the problem with getting the world to understand that www. should be wholly unnecessary and that in actuality www. serves no real purpose.

[Pilsen]

31% of domains (among 120 million we scan) have no A records for "www" prefix.

[edited by: tedster at 2:51 am (utc) on Jan. 2, 2010]
[edit reason] no specific domain names, please [/edit]

[phranque]

Try these well-known brands. All of them redirect to www. They know very well what they are doing and why.

all of the brands mentioned will have extraordinary requirements such as dedicated image servers as suggested by yaix2 and load balancing as suggested by jdMorgan.

[dailypress]

I used htaccess to redirect to with 'www'. Just following what Google is doing itself! :) but at the end of the day I dont think it makes a big difference.... its personal preference and thats why Google/Webmasters gives you both options..

[graeme_p]

As people already said, whichever you use 301. I am always surprised how many people do not.

I see no reason for most people to use www. (very busy sites might benefit from load balancing etc.).

There are some people who definitely should not use www (url shortners for example).

Given that it really does not matter, dropping it for brevity seems right.

It made sense when each subdomain mapped to a server, and each server ran just one subdomain.

If you have multiple servers running multiple services for example.com, have a proxy at example.com directing the requests on port 80 to the web server etc.

[maximillianos]

This same argument could be made for .com domains versus everything else. Everyone agrees that .com domains are the way to go. There is no technical reason or advantage, it is based of user preferences and what they have grown use to.

Same is true for the www. prefix in regards to most users being use to seeing it. AND it even has a few technical advantages.

In my opinion, there is no winning argument here. Yes, it can work just fine without it, so what? Folks are comfortable seeing it there.

I'll join the mutiny once the general population is comfortable with it not being there. ;-)

[anshul]

Would do www.

Let it be there.

[Seb7]

I personally prefer the www.
www is good in a link, as it pre-warns its an internet address. (ie.the world wide web!)

rather get rid of the //

I've never said 'dub-dub-dub', nor 'addy' come to that, as I always hear from inexperienced web users who are trying to look experienced! makes me cringe.

[g1smd]

If your site is example.com what Google site: search do you do to find all URLs that do have a sub-domain prefix while excluding all those that do not have a prefix?

You need to be able to do that search to find any multiple sub-domain duplicate content issues.

If you are using www for the site, the two searches are

site:www.example.com

and

site:example.com -inurl:www

.

[JAB Creations]

'Hm, I think I'll visit that site example.com I like so much...'

*types 'example'*

*presses CTRL+Enter*

- John

[phranque]

find all URLs that do have a sub-domain prefix while excluding all those that do not have a prefix

i think this search should do that:
site:*.example.com

[chasehx]

It's all about no www. In a technical sense, www is deprecated. It was used to signify that the server on that subdomain was to serve just that, the world wide web, more specifically, the portion of it that it makes up. The thing is, people, and google, are smart enough to realize there should be no www. We don't email people like [e-mail](usually at least) because we, and the program, KNOW it is going to a mailserver, and do not need that distinction.

http://no-www.org/

My favorite site.

[edited by: phranque at 2:06 am (utc) on Jan. 5, 2010]
[edit reason] unlinked url [/edit]

[phranque]

that site promotes poor practices regarding domain canonicalization.
last i checked their contact address was DITW and hadn't been updated in a while so i would consider it an orphaned project at this point.

[graeme_p]

Everyone agrees that .com domains are the way to go.

Not always. Not if you want the shortest possible domain name, not if you are targeting at a particular country, not for an an organisation that can signal something by using another TLD (.dov, .edu, etc. arguably even .org or .aero).

Same is true for the www. prefix in regards to most users being use to seeing it.

So you redirect them.

One thing I have noticed is that sites that use www often fail to redirect the url without it, but those that do not use www always redirect.

www is good in a link, as it pre-warns its an internet address. (ie.the world wide web!)

Except there is nothing to stop you having your ftp server at htp://www.example.com if you want to. I also fail to see what practical problem this solves.

On the other hand http:// reliably tells you the same thing.

rather get rid of the //

Dropping it altogether will break things.

We need a separator between the protocol and the address. Does anyone know why a simple colon was deemed insufficient in the first place?

In practice the whole of the protocol is optional when actually typing into an address bar. It is also possible to hide it in the client (as Safari does on the iPhone). It is then only necessary in links. If browsers reliably assumed that no protocol means the same protocol as the current page (as they do with links that omit the domain name) we could largely omit it there as well.

@phranque what you call "poor practices" enouraged no-www.org are a means of spreading the message - a bit like people who do not support IE6 because they want to discourage people from using it.

[phranque]

handing out "badges" for Class A or Class C as described is ridiculous.

[xalex]

WebmasterWorld.com is great

But in the future

WebmasterWorld.mars ?

How about

WebmasterWorld.msft?

You see the confusion average joe will get into?
www.WebmasterWorld.com is the proper way, not necessarily the best way.

Plus not to mention load balancing without spending huge amount on complicated DNS setup. If you go with IP rotation on DNS server, you can have single point of failure. (and, have we as industry figured out best way to load balance & uptime?)

Its easier to debug/redirect when things go wrong at
www1.WebmasterWorld.com
www2.WebmasterWorld.com

And even with complicated load balancing. You don't want everybody constantly hitting webmasterworld.com, sooner or later you will reach the limit on your servers.

Rather get rid of http:// and make it default protocol. How many ppl outside tech industry uses any other protocol anyway?

[phranque]

http: IS the default protocol - on a web browser at least.
as far as other URI Schemes [iana.org] are concerned, i use https, pop, imap, ftp, telnet, file and mailto on a regular basis.

[tangor]

Accept either. Why lose traffic? This is a non-starter.

[phranque]

decide on one as canonical.
accept requests for either.
respond to canonical requests with 200 OK.
respond to non-canonical requests with 301 Moved Permanently to canonical url.
no lost traffic.

[dailypress]

Many text editors, email clients, and word processors will generate hypertext links if you've used the www (as in www.example.com), but will not link out if you've typed example.com.

Very good point! I never thought of that although I always favored with www. esp. since Google uses the same format.