I figured it has been a little while since we’ve got a good blogging discussion going, so here is today’s topic. Do you still use the WWW prefix when setting up websites on your domains?
For some background on what I’m talking about, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
The letters “www” are commonly found at the beginning of Web addresses because of the long-standing practice of naming Internet hosts (servers) according to the services they provide. So for example, the host name for a Web server is often “www”; for an FTP server, “ftp”; and for a USENET news server, “news” or “nntp” (after the news protocol NNTP). These host names appear as DNS subdomain names, as in www.example.com.
This use of such prefixes is not required by any technical standard; indeed, the first Web server was at “nxoc01.cern.ch”, and even today many Web sites exist without a “www” prefix. The “www” prefix has no meaning in the way the main Web site is shown. The “www” prefix is simply one choice for a Web site’s host name.
Some Web browsers will automatically try adding “www.” to the beginning, and possibly “.com” to the end, of typed URLs if no host is found without them. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera will also prefix “http://www.” and append “.com” to the address bar contents if the Control and Enter keys are pressed simultaneously. For example, entering “example” in the address bar and then pressing either just Enter or Control+Enter will usually resolve to http://www.example.com, depending on the exact browser version and its settings.
Though it is just my personal preference, you might notice that Hack WordPress does NOT use the www, nor do any of the websites I’ve setup over the past few years. Anymore with 301 redirects (which for WordPress users, it is now built into the software) and today’s modern internet browsers, I don’t feel that it is necessary any longer and I think sites look better without it.
According to Google it doesn’t matter which you choose, but they want you to stick with your choice so your inbound links are consistent. Overall, it really comes down to a preference thing. Do you use the www in your domains?
Kyle Eslick
Kyle Eslick is WordPress enthusiast who took his passion for WordPress to the next level back in 2007 by launching WPHacks.com as a place to share hacks and review WordPress-related products.
These are all reasons why I have my blog on Wordpress. I really like how versatile it is and ...
Hi Kyle,
I had the exact problem you stated, my author archive went to
/author/Jordan%20Godbey
and my nicename in the database was "Jordan ...
Liked the "SimpleWP Theme". Neat and clean. Over all good collection of themes. 
The new download link for the wordpress help sheet:
http://wpcandy.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/WordPress-Help-Sheet.pdf 
really nice theme.thanks a lot 
Open php.ini file and increase the size. 
As a general rule, I do not use the www-prefix on my own domains.
Neither do I type it, and this sometimes brings interesting results.
A surprising number of websites returns an error page, if you type the URL without www. Not just personal or hobby websites, but some belonging to large cooperations as well.
My worst example is one of the largest political parties in Denmark that for the first week of a four-week election campaign returned an error message if you type the party name without the www-prefix. Not even a custom made error message pointing visitors in the right direction, but a standard server error message.
Personally I like the “www” beginning. While I don’t type it into Firefox (I let it autofill) when I am actually looking at a domain I like the balance of the 3 letters at the end (.com) with the 3 at the beginning (www.) which to me just “looks nicer”. Weird, I know, but there you go.
Classically, I think, people are also used to a www. beginning to a domain. I think if you miss it off less savvy Internet users might wonder why and what was going on. Trust is important.
Just my 2 cents…
I’m not sure it matters that much. If articles are to be believed everyone just types the name into Google don’t they?
I prefer to leave off the ‘www’. It’s just not necessary unless the server is set up wrong. BTW, here is code you can put into an .htaccess file (if you use the Apache webserver) to automatically redirect visitors who type in ‘www’ to the same address without the ‘www’. This is a better setup than having duplicate content at both addresses.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.brookstonepark\.org$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://brookstonepark.org/$1 [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
The lazy developer in me says four extra characters that serve no purpose needs to be left out, so no www. for my sites. I love that WP automatically redirects whatever version (www. or non-www.) of the domain is instantiated in the settings.
Just a sidenote to the comment of Doug.
Of course, when copying&pasting the code provided by Doug, you’ve to replace http://brookstonepark.org/ with your own domain name
ciao
alex
I’m using it. Honestly, I never really asked myself which one I prefer. With 301 redirect, nevermind you type www or not, you’ll see the same website.
Thanks Doug for the usefull Apache tip
I don’t usually use it but I do notice that people at work who are less tech savvy than I do. I’m not sure if I prefer it one way above the other… I think it’s just more of a shortcut thing. I do notice that some webservers don’t recognize having no subdomain as defaulting to www which means I have to go back and correct it manually (kindof a pain)
I don’t use the “www” unless it’s in an email.
The real question is: Would you use it in offline marketing? I do.
I use www only for websites oriented to people who dont have a well knownledge of the internet, for that people is better to give things as easy as possible
And is a good practice for marketing too…
But for technical sites I use always an address without the www (adding mod_rewrite rules to convert address for those that put the www.).
I hate using www. I’ve been meaning to do something about it on my sites, so I added Doug’s code above, and it looks like it’s working fine.
How can we make it not use the www from the get go of a site? Is there a redirect or something?
Thanks for offering your input everyone! I was hoping this post would get some good participation.
As I mentioned in my post (and was confirmed above), it really doesn’t matter which you choose. WordPress now (as of 2.5 I believe) will redirect whichever you don’t choose to the one you choose. The important thing is Google wants you to pick one or the other and not mix and match.
I think as someone mentioned above, you can almost cater to the website. Certain sites may be a better fit for the WWW, but I think most webmasters are switching to not using it now and for good reason.
@ Frank – From a WordPress perspective, when you are running the install script for WordPress or entering the requested information in Fantastico don’t use the www.
Though I don’t recommend making a change for already established websites, to change an existing blog easily, you can go into your settings and make the change there.
Haven’t used it since the ’90s
Kyle, I don’t use the www because not using it makes the domain look shorter in my opinion, and shorter domains have more authority(not from search engines, just visitor impression), generally speaking. That’s my thought!
I’m still use the www,it seems to i should remove it.
I never use www))
Seems my code was altered by the comment form. There should be a dollar sign before the ’1′ after the last domain name, so it would read out loud: “domain name, slash, dollar sign, one” I hope that’s not too confusing!
And thanks, Big Blogger. Yes, please change the domain name to your own; don’t redirect your visitors to my site!
Let me try one more time:
RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
Nope, the dollar sign got stripped again. Maybe Kyle could fix it? (Sorry for the multiple posts.)
Hi Doug,
Sorry for the comment form problems. A fix is in the works
It shows up correctly when I edit the comment, but it keeps breaking. When I added the code command it still removes the $ sign, so hopefully I can get a fix in place soon. In the meantime, your verbal explanation should do the trick.
Thanks!
I don’t use it. And I find it annoying when webhosts don’t setup their server to resolve the domain without www. in front of it.
I knew some guys running an ISP in California and none of their webhosting clients domains were setup to work without www. in front of the domain name. I had some clients who hosted with them and I would call and bitch at the network admin to get it fixed. I thought it was just plain lazy to be honest. They said their script they used to setup the domain wasn’t programmed to do it and they never took the time to fix it.
Either way, most people probably never noticed and I imagine the average end user types www. automatically.
Hey Kyle, wanted to say that I borrowed your topic of discussion and created a poll on Performancing asking if people used WWW or not http://performancing.com/do-you-use-www-your-domain-name the results are almost 50-50.
@ Jeffro – Yeah, I am a Performancing reader and saw that! Thanks for the heads up though, as I’ve been meaning to check on how that turned out.
I love that WP automatically redirects whatever version (www. or non-www.) of the domain is instantiated in the settings.
thank’s
Armentho’s