www.

[tm]

Whats with the www.? Of course I know what it means (world wide web) but why is it there? Is it really necessary? Whats the origin of it?

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I don't know the full ins and out of it, but I think it is useful...

I think that it was just the way they designed it!, with it there it allows extra subdomains that can be used for full flexibility by the owner...

Not only that, but it shows that it is related to the internet. WWW. defines a website address to a customer... imagine you were not a domainer and had never heard of the ".TRAVEL" (rediculous) extension... if you saw this on a bill board...

China.travel

... You wouldn't even think it was a website address!... however, when you add www. :


www.China.travel

it SHOWS the customer that it is actually a domain!

I like WWW. anyway!

- Luke

 

[FanCube]

The "www" is a survival from the past. We must remember that domains were used before the World Wide Web was invented. In the "good" old days the www subdomain was used for the webserver, the ftp subdomain was used for the FTP server etc. The root domain was not necessary on the same machine as the webserver (very rare today.)

Today most domains are used for websites and the common setup of domains and the general IT infrastructur dosn´t require the "www" anymore. An example is that it is possible to host more than one domain on an IP address. (virtually hosts.)

Today the "www" it mostly used because people recognize a website URL on the www prefix.

 

[Dannoth]

I think newbs at the computer always use it. Parents etc, always type in www. before eveything. I am quite a fast typer, so i leave it out, unless I know that the domain will not work without the "www."

 

[Epic]

I always try to market my site without the www. Gets the users to the site a few seconds faster

 

[Dannoth]

Yeah, and when there are character restrictions, it is quicker and wastes less characters leaving out the www.

 

[cache]

I have asked this question twice in this thread:

http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/177125-page-ranking-7-page-ranking-0-a.html

but no one there is able to answer it.
Here I am asking it again, hope someone might know the answer (the assumption is the www.domain has a PR7 rank, but the domain.com has only PR0 rank):

I never fully understand the difference between www.domain.com and the other domain.com. Suppose I want to buy a link from your PR3 page instead of a link to your PR0 page. Where or which page should I leave my link?

Still I don't know the answer of how to link a higher PR page. If I only have one index.htm file in the root directory, which page has higher PR? How do I link so that I can be sure that I am buying the higher PR page?

 

[danBoT]

pr rank is the domain you are sending the links to so if you get a bnch of people linking to www.domain but none with the link like domain.com then the www.will naturally be higher market the domain equally both ways you will have a closer pr like stated before www.is kinda like a subdomain but goes to your main page making the domain different then the other

 

[harkster]

look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb

and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Www

and for more http://www.w3.org/History.html

I have asked this question twice in this thread:

http://www.namepros.com/domain-name-discussion/177125-page-ranking-7-page-ranking-0-a.html

but no one there is able to answer it.
Here I am asking it again, hope someone might know the answer (the assumption is the www.domain has a PR7 rank, but the domain.com has only PR0 rank):

I never fully understand the difference between www.domain.com and the other domain.com. Suppose I want to buy a link from your PR3 page instead of a link to your PR0 page. Where or which page should I leave my link?

Still I don't know the answer of how to link a higher PR page. If I only have one index.htm file in the root directory, which page has higher PR? How do I link so that I can be sure that I am buying the higher PR page?

You can think of the www as a subdomain like subname.somename.ext so while pointing to the same ip address they are seperate entities.

pr rank is the domain you are sending the links to so if you get a bnch of people linking to www.domain but none with the link like domain.com then the www.will naturally be higher market the domain equally both ways you will have a closer pr like stated before www.is kinda like a subdomain but goes to your main page making the domain different then the other

It is good to do a 301 redirect via the .htaccess file to point the name.ext to www.name.ext so the www will have the all the pr/backlinks etc.

 

[khuldun]

I dont know much about the origin though i know this that when you add or do not use www, it affects the page rank of the domain

 

[smub]

well i always wonder this too

here is my educated guess

it is the way designed it, and the way to show that it is the website not any company name or stuff, as it means world wide web so it is basically to emphasize that it is the website.

About the PR, your PR is higher if people type www.xxx.com more then PR with www. is higher or other way around, so basically it is not a big deal and it can be fixed by adding one code into your site.

This is the way to design in order to track every site and i think thats it.

regards,
smub

 

[cache]

I think I did not make my quesiton clear: I understand that www.domain.com and domain.com may have different PR number, I don't care what is the reason that caused the differences, whether it is because the way the domain is linked or other reasons. I don't care. What I do care is this:

assume that:
* the www.domain.com has a PR7 rank
* but the domain.com has only PR0 rank
* there is no www subdirectory or anything, only a index.htm file in root directory

Because I have the valuable PR7 page, I want to make some money from it by offering links, i.e. charge $30/month to anyone who wants to pay. My customer certainly does not want to pay $30/month for the PR0 page link, they certainly want to pay for the link from the PR7 page. My question is, if I leave the customer's link in the index.htm file, do they know they purchased a PR7 link or PR0 link?

 

[tbl]

Whats with the www.? Of course I know what it means (world wide web) but why is it there? Is it really necessary? Whats the origin of it?

never really thought about it. I guess its to show a web address

 

[oldratracer]

Here you go TM...hope these 2 articles answers your ?....

Scot Purcell was the original President and CEO, Founder of www.com (an online music company that was originally based just south of Los Angeles)...

Then:
http://www.startupjournal.com/howto/management/200005221134-morse.html

Now:
http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=6094

OldRatRacer

 

[Ben]

"Www." is just a pointless subdomain.

 

[tm]

Thanks everyone

 

[Dannoth]

"Www." is just a pointless subdomain.

Some people have their domains to work so that they can only be accessed with the www. , so technically its not useless

 

[Ben]

Some people have their domains to work so that they can only be accessed with the www. , so technically its not useless

I doubt they meant to set it up so subdomain-free version didn't work, it just makes their site a lot more inaccessible; perhaps you should contact them and notify them of the problem? Check out http://no-www.org/, it has some useful infomation regarding why the "www." subdomain is deprecated and unneeded.

For any sites I make I always 301 redirect http://www.* to http://*, that way you get rid of the annoying "www.", keep your site accessible to people who type www by default, and keep your pagerank from anyone linking to http://www.*.

 

[Dannoth]

nice link, and about the page rank, i have to admit the www. is annoying, as your page rank is different for both of the domains.