16 replies to this topic

[Atticka]

Hey Everyone,

I was wondering what everyones thoughts were on leaving out the WWW from their site address?

I opted to not use the WWW and simply go without, I even have it setup to redirect visitors should they enter the WWW.

I've heard that this may also have a negative effect on Google's page rank, but I can't confirm this anywhere.

What are your thoughts on this?

Edited by Atticka, 10 September 2007 - 09:34 AM.

[Rogue]

i dont mind either way it doesnt really matter my page site works both with or without it and it doesnt effect anything so i dont really care

[QBasicer]

Personally I'm against it, and I even used to have it set up so that putting www in front was not a valid domain, and hense would fail.

[Mudcrutch]

some discussion on that here:

http://forums.asmallorange.com/index.php?showtopic=10240

[Atticka]

Yeah, I saw that discussion. I'm looking for more of a "why" conversation instead of the "how" conversation.

[NyteOwl]

Well leaving technical arguments aside for the moment, the overwhelming majority of web users type in addresses as www.site.tld, not just site.tld. Having a redirect will handle this circumstance, and is the most user friendly and possibly the most search engine friendly as well, though they can likely handle either easily.

Having it simply fail on the other hand is, in my opinion, a poor practice and most unfriendly to the web user trying to reach your site. While this may not matter for a low traffic and/or personal site, for any site that wishes to attract the average web user it can lead to lost visitors, or customers if the site is revenue generating. Even if it doesn't, it will likely lead to a certain level of frustration with using the site. Whether you choose to redirect the www to the base domain or not (or vice versa) is your decision however, it provides a far smoother experience for your site visitors.

The technical argument for using WWW is that it represents a web server within a domain. Like many such things in networking, as in other fields, this is a convention and not a requirement. While there may be no other servers within that domain, it provides a rather explicit indication of the server purpose (even if not running on a dedicated system). It also provides an explicit address for a domain's main site location, especially when a domain exists with seperate sites on other subdomains and offers a logical consistent partitioning of domain namespace.

Edited to correct typo

Edited by NyteOwl, 10 September 2007 - 02:20 PM.

[IBBoard]

Personally I go with WWW. For one thing it's what most people are used to, for another it often looks more balanced, but more importantly then it doesn't screw up cookies and make them apply across sites.

As an example, I've got www.hiveworldterra.co.uk as my main "Hive World Terra" website (stuff for Games Workshop's games). I've then got skins.hiveworldterra.co.uk (textures, badges, banners and all sorts of stuff for the Dawn of War computer game) and forums.hiveworldterra.co.uk as the combined forums.

As it is now then I can set a cookie domain for each and I won't get overlap. If I set the main HWT to use hiveworldterra.co.uk then I'd have to set the cookie domain up so that the main HWT cookies 'bled' into the subdomains. In effect it's because I use "www" as a "main website" subdomain, but IMO it's just better.

[Mudcrutch]

Yeah, I saw that discussion. I'm looking for more of a "why" conversation instead of the "how" conversation.

there is a discussion as to why in that thread. we discuss this article:

http://www.blogherald.com/2007/06/07/forci...lemental-index/

/spoonfeeding

[Jory]

Personally, I never use www.
In the same way, I don't send emails to account@mail.domain.com, I don't FTP with account@ftp.domain.com, etc.
(I also don't send use mail.domain.com to connect to with my email accounts, ftp.domain.com to connect to with FTP, etc.)

I beleave that domain names should represent how the content on the domain is build up, and so the main part should be at the domain itself, not a subdomain of it. For specific subsections of your website, use subdomains.

If cookies overlapsing with other applications on your domain are a problem, you just have terrible cookie naming. :/

[mfarley]

2 huge reasons

1.) without a redirect to www or from www you are actually splitting your domain in two.  Search engines will see them as different websites and incoming links going to one will not credit the other.

2.) if you have a client login www and nonwww are separate cookies so if they're logged into one and follow a link that links to the other they will no longer be logged in.

[Jeffrey]

Here is my opinion.

I use a 301 redirect with mod_rewrite to strip the WWW from all incoming links.

[IBBoard]

Jory: It's not just cookie naming, but also a degree of cookie security. Yes, my sites should be secure, but if anyone does find an exploit for the subdomain site then without a "www." then they can then access all cookies for both the subdomain and the main domain. In some cases, that can be much worse.

Jeffrey: that's not an opinion, that's a website I'm guessing your opinion is "Class B" then.

[Jory]

Jory: It's not just cookie naming, but also a degree of cookie security. Yes, my sites should be secure, but if anyone does find an exploit for the subdomain site then without a "www." then they can then access all cookies for both the subdomain and the main domain. In some cases, that can be much worse.

Hmm, that is a verry valid point I hadn't thought of yet. I could go and say "don't have exploitable software then", but I gues thats just not how it works. :/
(I thought you can actually set cookies for domain.com, which means they only work for domain.com, not for sub.domain.com. Or am I wrong on this?)

[IBBoard]

That's like saying "don't vote in a politician who lies". No matter how much you try and how much you check then the theory never quite meets the practice. About the only way to guarantee completely non-exploitable scripts is to not accept user input, at which point you've got quite a useless script, or to have a small script, which most CMSes certainly aren't.

Yes, you can clean all input etc to remove all obvious avenues of attack, but it's still in the human nature to miss something or be imperfect somewhere

As for setting cookies for domain.com, IIRC there's a limitation on the minimum number of dots in a domain (called the "two dot rule" here - first google result) that means for .coms .nets and the like then you have to do .example.com, not example.com. I have to do it at home as well - .localhost.localdomain rather than localhost or localhost.localdomain. AFAIK you can't append a dot to the end either, as that's not a valid way to do a domain. I could be wrong, but I've never seen anywhere recommend it as a work-around.

[saim82]

I've heard arguements for and against in regards to it having negative effects with google...but I have never seen concrete proof one way or the other. I just keep the www. as a matter of preference.

Cheers

[NyteOwl]

localhost.localdomain. is "technically" valid but given the usage of that particular entity is pretty much useless. Once you get off the host and into the domain name system proper domain.tld. starts to have relevance.

[Collin1000]

I vary. When Im running an ad or promo, I just say "Domain.com"


When I am actually inter-linking or making codes, I always prefix the www into it.

http://domain.com looks funny
http://www.domain.com looks a bit better


Dunno, lol. I just like the www..... except in ads.

EDIT-
When its a subdomain, the www makes it look ugly. So I dont use WWW for subdomains either.

Edited by Collin1000, 26 January 2008 - 11:18 PM.