To www or not to www?

#1

Post by kn9 » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 1:30 AM UTC

WWW or not WWW, What should I choose as my site name?

Re: To www or not to www?

#2

Post by lingben » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 1:37 AM UTC

doesn't really matter, just be consistent

Re: To www or not to www?

#3

Post by throwaway420 » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 1:42 AM UTC

As a technical person, I can recognize a URL when I see it and prefer the non-www version for brevity's sake.

But many non-technical people cannot understand if something is a website URL without the WWW in front of it. It's probably best to add WWW if your target audience is normal humans.

Re: To www or not to www?

#4

Post by pwg » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 1:55 AM UTC

Just map both to the same site.

Problem solved.

Re: To www or not to www?

#5

Post by jacob_smith » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 1:56 AM UTC

Is there a reason both aren't registered at the same time? i.e., why does it matter which one I point to in a url/link/script/etc.?

Re: To www or not to www?

#6

Post by _pcpe » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 2:13 AM UTC

I prefer no WWW because that makes the domain look shorter and and hence easier to remember.

Re: To www or not to www?

#7

Post by tedivm » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 2:22 AM UTC

With "www". That makes it a lot easier to add in CDN support, DNS based load balancers, and a ton of other tools down the line.

Why? Because you need your domain root to have all sorts of other stuff in it- MX records, SPF keys, and various other things. A lot of CDNs and DNS based tools work really well by utilizing CNAMEs, which you can't do on the root. Putting your website on "www" keeps is as a separate isolated service and makes adding those services easier down the line.

Re: To www or not to www?

#8

Post by igor47 » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 2:58 AM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #7

With "www". That makes it a lot easier to add in CDN support, DNS based load balancers, and a ton of other tools down the line. Why? Because you need your domain root to have all sorts of other stuff in it- MX records, SPF keys, and various other things. A lot of CDNs and DNS based tools work really well by utilizing CNAMEs, which you can't do on the root. Putting your website on "www" keeps is as a separate isolated…

This. Don't use your zone apex name as your main site. You will regret it. If visitors come to the non-www version of the site send them a 301 redirect.

Re: To www or not to www?

#9

Post by yen223 » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 3:06 AM UTC

Is there any downside to having both point to the same place?

Re: To www or not to www?

#10

Post by unclebucknasty » Sun, Feb 02, 2014, 3:14 AM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #7

With "www". That makes it a lot easier to add in CDN support, DNS based load balancers, and a ton of other tools down the line. Why? Because you need your domain root to have all sorts of other stuff in it- MX records, SPF keys, and various other things. A lot of CDNs and DNS based tools work really well by utilizing CNAMEs, which you can't do on the root. Putting your website on "www" keeps is as a separate isolated…

I'm not sure I understand this advice. The domain root can still have the CNAME, TXT, SPF, MX records, etc. while pointing the zone root to the website's IP. These are all just different record types within the zone, right?