To www or Not to www?
- June 11th, 2007
That is the question today, kids. Do you www?
I don’t think I’ve actively used www in a URL since 2004 or so. I’m not sure how I figured it out, but one day I just realized I didn’t need to use it anymore. It was just extraneous typing. Whenever I see URLs on television or hear people read them on the radio and they actually say “dubya dubya dubya hot tech jobs dot com”, I think to myself, “How hot can they be are you if you are still using www?”
It’s my understanding and my experience that www went the way of the dodo somewhere around IE 5. And with the boom of Firefox and the anti-IE explosion of alternate browsers, www didn’t seem to matter anymore. A lot of people still use the term because a (sometimes) older, often less Internet-savvy crowd are still in wonder of the miracle that is the World Wide Web (and still use Internet Explorer). These tend to be the same folks who surf the Information Super Highway and have cyber-sex with their virtual girlfriends. You know, the girlfriends that look like supermodels, mysteriously ship electronics to your house and live in Nigeria. These folks may even believe the Internet is a series of tubes, I’m not sure.
Most websites I build these days are not structured to include www by default. I set up all the paths without it. You can access it by www most of the time, sure, provided the host has it structured that way (and if they don’t, I often arrange for it to do so). So, in essence the www still works, but it just seems superfluous. I used to think it was necessary, but during struggles with assorted hosts (usually of the Windows variety), I’ve been told that www is practically obsolete. I’ve even had sites deliver a 404 when trying to access them with www, but not if I access the URL without it. In fact, we’ve had hosts serve up a completely different site if you don’t include the www and vice versa (not Hosting Matters, though. They know what’s up!)
So, I’d like to know once and for all from all my fine readers and especially from those well-versed in geekery: Do you use www when accessing a domain and/or developing a website (if that’s your thing)? Is www a necessary prefix and if so, why? If it’s not, does it seem archaic to include it or just catering to the common denominator, since many people still believe it’s necessary.
I’d like to know if I’ve been misinformed or not. What say you?
- Filed under: uncategorized
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you are a geek. but yeah, those www bug me. but i still use them when giving out my url because people are lame and don’t get it.
round two of blueberry mini-muffins tonight???
@chickrawker: I’m wearing my geek hat with pride. Crap, that reminds me — I promised you your tags!
re: tonight… I’m going to try. I’ve got a stack of editing here and I’m not feeling well today, but I’m going to give it a go!
Sad to say I still use it. I think about 4-6 years ago there were sites I’d try to access and they wouldn’t work without the www; so it became engraved in my head. Must.use.www – Am I wrong? Did it ever work this way?
I use it, more out of habit than anything else. URL’s just don’t look right without either www or a subdomain…
@Steph: no, you’re correct. 4-6 years ago it was still common practice to include the http://www. But that was 4-6 years ago and at least 3 versions of Internet Explorer ago, too. hehe! It’s my understanding and experience that you no longer need to use it.
@Summer: I can see that — habit.
This is really why I ask: how many people still believe it’s necessary and if lots of people do still use it, there’s a chance I may be totally wrong (which is possible)!
No www for me. Once I figured out I didn’t need it, I think someone in an IT department told me a very long time ago actually, I stopped using it. It was a habit for a little bit, but I got over the extra typey typey quickly.
I never use it. I rarely even type in http:// anymore and just go for the address. Is that living on the edge?
Or does that make me lazy just trying to save key strokes??
No www for me.
In fact, I rarely type the .com anymore, either.
I usually use my favorite shortcut “Ctrl-Enter”
That would be: tenth-muse[ctrl-enter]
@joz: ah, yes. The ctrl-enter move. I like that one, too, though I don’t use it as often because not all URLs have .com and that’s the default.
It kinda depends for me. If I type a URL directly into my browser (which rarely happens), I’ll still use the dubyas – habit, I guess. Plus, at work we have several websites that still require them (old school, I know! I’d change it if I could). But if I’m chatting with someone, I’ll skip the dubyas and just say (for example) flickr.com. When I make sites, if I’m not using relative paths like I usually do, I’ll include the dubyas. Honestly, I never really even thought about it before! Haha.
I never use the ‘www’ anymore. =)
In other browser-related news, Safari is now available for Windows! Woo!!
I can’t remember the last time I typed the triple dub. I usually Ctrl+Enter in Windows world. When I’m on the Mac I don’t need to.
Bigger than all that: WELCOME BACK! Your sassiness has been missed!
this ‘www’ business caused me a lot of grief today! heh. just a tip. DO NOT use .htaccess to remove it. it’s fast. it works. it breaks a lot of other things.
I do not WWW my URL’s, and I’ve only had 2 sites not work properly. Of course, I can’t remember what either of the sites are.
A friend has a blog that I need to use dub, dub, dub to access her protected posts. I’m not sure why, but if I don’t use that I don’t get to her private
partsposts.I use it a lot out of habit, too. Kind of like how I p!ss off people like Kathy by writing checks in Target instead of using my debit card. No rhyme. No reason. Forget to take the shortcut. I’m old skool, yo.
It just occured me, as I re-read my post, that I may have insulted a bunch of people! haha! I totally didn’t mean to.
I personally don’t use the www and for sites I visit often, since I have the “remember what I fill in the search bar activated” in Firefox, I usually only have type in the first two or three letters and it pops up for me to click on.
But if I’m doing a site &/or literature for a client whose site caters to a broad range of ages and levels, I’ll include the www part.
I use it mostly out of habit. But, strictly speaking, the fact that most sites will take you to the same server with or without it is as defacto rule as the www part is. Anyway, when talking about a site, I don’t include the www, but when typing it in I do. I also don’t think the url looks complete without a subdomain.
For me, it depends– if it’s a URL I go to all the time, I don’t use it. But if it’s a new-to-me one, I do, because I’ve had it happen, like, even in the past two weeks, where I don’t put in the www and the site doesn’t work. And I hate wasting my .3 seconds re-typing everything.
don’t use it and try to convince the fucktards at work not to use it in their copy.
That is so strange. Whenever I type a URL in the browser, I never used www. But when I am working on the blog I ALWAY do it. Out of habit I guess.
Any half-capable host has the www A record set to alias to the domain.com A record, meaning both http://www.domain.com and domain.com go by default to the same place. Where you run into trouble is when some asstard IT knowitall, who insists on managing their own DNS (instead of simply changing the domain to use the host’s nameservers like a non-asstard would), sets the www A record to the correct IP, but doesn’t set the domain.com A record, or vice versa, for whatever crack-smoking reason.
Anyway, that was like, way too much information, wasn’t it.
i don’t even type the .com tenth-muse(ctrl+enter) is the way to go.
My site is set up to work either way. DreamHost asks you that with every new domain you register…if you want the www or not, or both…
@Stacy: that was totally the information I was looking for! I knew you’d have the dish. I figured that was the case.
@Deltus: still from Germany, I see. lol (I wonder what is UP with your IP!)
@soapbox: I can’t abide by Dreamhost, unfortunately. I’ve shaken my fist at their servers far too many times. lol. but i know a lot of people who use and enjoy them. It’s good that they offer the option, but I would think, like Stacy said, that they should just set it up that way by default.
@jules: so weird to not see a URL for you.
Nope, no www for me, either… that is, unless I can’t get to the site. Then I try the ol’ www trick. If THAT doesn’t work, then the site is having issues, or I really don’t need to see it. Heh, am I that far behind that I didn’t know about the CRTL+Enter thing?!?? Then again, it isn’t going to kill my fingers to get a little “.com” typing excercise…
For all of the sites we set up at work (on Apache and IIS), we set up the sites with and without the www because as a business you never know if your customers are going to use it or not.
As a user, I don’t type the www and get frustrated when I come across sites that have not been set up properly on the server side.
What, are you trying to imply that the internet functions in some way other than by TUBES??? Huh, and here I returned after months and did cartwheels because you’re back only to find that you DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT THE INTERNET RUNS THROUGH A VERY INTRICATE SERIES OF BIG AND NOT-SO-BIG TWISTY TURNY TUBES!!!
Welcome back, Joelle. Thank you for making this tube-y internet a better place.
@Tara Jane: thank you! hahaha!
when i tell someone a url, i don’t say www, but if i’m typing it, either in a document or code, i’ll still include it. mostly out of habit and but also for aesthetics. a url just doesn’t look complete to me without it.
I so don’t get this “doesn’t look complete” thing that so many have mentioned. I find that fascinating! lol
HAHA that’s funny, because I think it looks weird without the www too! Like, ‘cuz Firefox (at least, if not the rest of the browsers–I only regularly use Firefox) automatically puts in the http:// nonsense, so when I look up right now, I see:
http://tenth-muse.com
And that looks abrupt. Like there should be something between the // and the domain name.
But no, I don’t usually use the www or the http:// I just type tenth-muse.com and let it roll.