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An interesting question about domains

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 7:03 am
by impulse()
I've been using the internet for over a decade and I love web technology but I've never questioned why most websites have their domain prefixed with 'www'.

And today a question hit me - is the 'www' part of a website address just a sub-domain, nothing more and nothing less?

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 7:29 am
by shiznatix
pretty much. its the subdomain that is used for when you go to their site. Sites will often have http://www.domain.com for their website address, ftp.domain.com for their ftp, mail.domain.com for their mail server...

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:35 am
by superdezign
www means you're on the world wide web. The Internet wasn't always open to the general public, and consists of more than just the hypertext protocols. The 'www' seems meaningless to us because the world wide web is the most popular Internet application in use, so we've began to see it as THE Internet, even though it's not.

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:38 am
by matthijs
there's even an organization trying to get the web www-less http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-www

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:47 am
by Ollie Saunders
I don't like the Ws, they are so difficult to say.

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 10:07 am
by superdezign
ole wrote:I don't like the Ws, they are so difficult to say.
Dubyadubyadubya-dot.

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 10:39 am
by matthijs
The worst thing is that when you visit some sites by typing in somedomain.com, you get a message that the domain doesn't exist. But when entering www. the site does exist.

So make sure that, whatever you use, they both exist and preferably redirect from one to the other

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 12:03 pm
by John Cartwright
matthijs wrote:The worst thing is that when you visit some sites by typing in somedomain.com, you get a message that the domain doesn't exist. But when entering www. the site does exist.

So make sure that, whatever you use, they both exist and preferably redirect from one to the other
Yea.. like my university's website, some of the online services require www and some don't.. talk about annoiying.

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 1:21 pm
by impulse()
I never say "double u double u double u' when speaking. I just say 'world wide web'. That way it has 6 less sylabels.

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 3:10 pm
by RobertGonzalez
"dub dub dub"

3 syllables, for the win!

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 3:43 pm
by Kieran Huggins
"trip dub"

down to two!

going once... twice.....

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 6:19 pm
by Chris Corbyn
"wuuuuhhhh" 8O

One syllable!!

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 6:57 pm
by superdezign
Chris Corbyn wrote:"wuuuuhhhh" 8O
Wouldn't it be more of a "wwooouhhh?"

Hehe, I can't seem to write it either.

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 8:12 pm
by s.dot
yeah, that's what it is. nothing more and nothing less =]

Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2007 7:58 am
by ianhull
I tend to just say, all the double u's

works for me anyway :)