Captain pi
Member
I have noticed that the traditional 'www.' that I love so much is starting to depart from websites, including BoS. Does anyone know why this is or what it signifies?
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"www" (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Captain pi
- Start date
Trev
stix
whats to love about it?! it causes the typing of 4 extra characters (www.) :uhhuh:
Rafy
Retired
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WHen i type "apple" it goes to www.apple.com
Slidey
But pieces of what?
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Whilst most browsers do indeed substitute 'http://' in if you do not enter it, it IS a required portion of the address. Note that if you do not type the 'www.', the browser does NOT substitute it in - it is not required. The reason being, without the 'http://' you could be referring to a file on your computer, or an ftp or anything.Deus said:
As far as I can tell, 'www.' appears to be merely a subdomain which mirrors the same address minus 'www.'.
goan_crazy
Hates the waiting game...
i just put boredofstudies.org and the www automatically comes up 
Plebeian
Member
I am a fan of dropping www. I think it's happening because 'www' takes so long to pronounce in audiovisual media. For a company looking to promote their website, it's much more punchy to just say amazon.com or apple.com than to have to include the w's. For whoever said www makes it obvious that it's a website, you can still recognise that pretty quickly from the domain suffix...
goan_crazy
Hates the waiting game...
yeah same lolznatstar said:
bubz :D
the last laugh
hmmm... i'ved noticed that there are some websites that don't work if you don't put the www in front of it, eg http://www.uac.edu.au (well, on IE anyway)
jm1234567890
Premium Member
errr..... i think you should try that againbubz :D said:
bubz :D
the last laugh
CrashOveride
Active Member
My IE fires up the http:// even if not in the address bar, re: UAC website.
I too am in the same predicament as bubz.
I too am in the same predicament as bubz.
townie
Premium Member
i'm a fan of www. because it's become 2nd nature to me these days
To answer a few questions,
Why does "www" work on some sites, yet others don't need it?
The "www" prefix depends on the server you are running, and how their DNS addressing works, as well as what is powering the web server. Let's say you buy the domain "random.com".
You might want the subdomain of "news" and "personal", therefore you could go to http://news.random.com/ or http://personal.random.com/ to get to these. Going to just http://random.com would deliver you to your main page.
However, most web servers in the /directory/ where your site is on the hard drive of the server, list all the subdomains, so in the above case, you may have:
/home/www/
/home/news/
/home/personal/
So, going to news.random.com will load the /news/ directory, for example. Some servers will load /www/ if you don't specify a subdomain, and some will not, and herein lies the problem.
There are other factors contributing, but it depends on how the addressing for the site works, and how the server is set up. If you want to use "www", use it, if you don't, then don't. But if a site does not work without it, then you'll have to include it.
That's my understanding of the system anyway. A majority of servers do not require "www", but the minority is still a very large number of sites.
Couldn't we just remove it entirely?
We could, but mind you, websites, some forums, programs such as the office suite etc, will turn your text into a hyperlink if you type "www.", and companies usually publish their website addresses as "www.company.com", not just "company.com" on their business cards. It's just the accepted way of naming the address to a website.
Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken in that, but that's what I've learned over the years about how website indexing and subdomains work.
Regards,
Med
Why does "www" work on some sites, yet others don't need it?
The "www" prefix depends on the server you are running, and how their DNS addressing works, as well as what is powering the web server. Let's say you buy the domain "random.com".
You might want the subdomain of "news" and "personal", therefore you could go to http://news.random.com/ or http://personal.random.com/ to get to these. Going to just http://random.com would deliver you to your main page.
However, most web servers in the /directory/ where your site is on the hard drive of the server, list all the subdomains, so in the above case, you may have:
/home/www/
/home/news/
/home/personal/
So, going to news.random.com will load the /news/ directory, for example. Some servers will load /www/ if you don't specify a subdomain, and some will not, and herein lies the problem.
There are other factors contributing, but it depends on how the addressing for the site works, and how the server is set up. If you want to use "www", use it, if you don't, then don't. But if a site does not work without it, then you'll have to include it.
That's my understanding of the system anyway. A majority of servers do not require "www", but the minority is still a very large number of sites.
Couldn't we just remove it entirely?
We could, but mind you, websites, some forums, programs such as the office suite etc, will turn your text into a hyperlink if you type "www.", and companies usually publish their website addresses as "www.company.com", not just "company.com" on their business cards. It's just the accepted way of naming the address to a website.
Feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken in that, but that's what I've learned over the years about how website indexing and subdomains work.
Regards,
Med