Difference Between Registering With 'www' And Without 'www'

Your domain name does not include the "www" - that part of an address is known as the sub-domain. It points to a folder on your web site. You can have multiple sub-domains, all registered under the same domain. So you could have "www.example.com," "discuss.example.com," and "blog.example.com," all registered as "example.com."

When you see Web addresses that have no apparent sub-domain (no "www" or other prefix) it's because the "www" has been removed using a file called ".htaccess" or some other programming.

Hope this helps.

Hello David,

Thanks David for your input. Some further questions are whether I can, as a newbie website owner, modify / amend this .htaccess file? Whether this amendment can be carried out immediately after domain registration but before uploading the web pages (hosting) on some site? Or is it to be done during / after uploading the web pages? Is it too involved, this amendment, or somebody with a smattering of .html can work out the process?

TIA

You likely have a control panel to access your files. If not, you will need to use an FTP program (File Transfer Protocol - different from HTTP). Many editors, such as Dreamweaver, have FTP built in. Personally, I use FileZilla.

In the same folder as your home page, there should be a file called ".htaccess". If you can't see it when you connect, it may be because file names beginning with a full stop are normally hidden. You need to find a setting that reveals normally hidden files.

Make a copy of this file, and save it under a different name, such as "backup.htaccess". Then download the .htaccess file and add the three "Rewrite" lines near the bottom of this page: No-WWW.org.

Upload the modified file and see if it works. If you get an error - likely a "500 Server Error" - replace the uploaded file with the backup you made, then double check your changes. Retry.

You can do this any time after your domain is working.

Good luck.

Hi David,

Thank you for pointing me to no-www. This is exactly what I was looking for.

Indeed, despite my newbie status, I have all along wondered the need to prefix URLs with these three w's. I feel validated that there is an entire group out there which has been thinking along the same lines.

Thanks again!

Using www or without www is a personal preference. In cPanel it is called "Redirect". What you set in Redirect will be written to .htaccess so no need to manually edit the file.

really such a nice question , i am also want to know about that difference...

Hi David,
In my mind one question arise that is which is better using www or not using www for site.

I learn here deference with 'www' and without 'www'. Thanks for informative sharing.

The www / non www can be easily made with the .htaccess file. Remember that you must have a single version of your site - with or without www.

Using www or without www is a personal preference.

It's no matter nowadays

Hi,
Starting the domain name name of your web site with www is a common convention and nothing more. There is nothing in the HTTP specification that says a web site must start with www. or any other prefix.

Hi

Will Google see www.xyz.com and xyz.com as a different site or same, and will it affect the keyword positioning???

There's a lot of difference. Some sites don't resolve this issue. If you go to www.domain.com and domain.com there would be instances that they land on different webpage. it is suggested that you have to declare and fix your www resolve. This could also help to have a better SEO result.

http://xyz.com and http://www.xyz.com has the same domain name: xyz, with TLD: .com

By default, when someone go to http://xyz.com or http://www.xyz.com will directed to the same page result, if they don't change the 'www' behavior to something else.

When someone go to http://www.xyz.com - it will redirected to xyz.com (by default).

In the control panel, you will see 'www' is a folder, similar as sub-domain folder(s).

You can set "target page A" for someone visit http://xyz.com and set "target page B" for someone visit http://www.xyz.com

When you register a new domain name, you don't type "http://" and/or "www." on its prefix. You register your domain name, and TLDs (.com, .net, .org, .info, etc).

I guess you must register the www.. one, because it is much more authoritative than having a no www. I actually encounter this thing for our sites, and I think that you can conjoined the with www. with no www.

Ex: If you type no www. it will automatically redirect to a www. website. (But i actually don't know the exact way on how to fix it.)

And i also learn that the no www website only formed in our way of promoting our website, because sometimes we forgot to include the www. in the address bar. We just type our domain name and then it will just landed in no www. and that was the thing that we promote. That's why the no www. website was promoted more than the www. one's.

As SEO we must always check the url we type so that it will not go through something not good for our website.

- Macky..

domain prefix (www OR noN www ) have more problem in search engine optimization - canonicalization, www vs. non-www, redirects, duplicate urls, 302 “hijacking,” etc.

With the above discussion,I think that it is good to register with www.

If you are doing link building then you should vary these things for better result as Google would think that you are doing the work manually..

www.xyz.com
www.xyz.com/
http://xyz.com
http://www.xyz.com/

www stands for world wide web it was created because they think that they will create other systems for example (just example) let say ggg. You register name of domain with extension www is always there. You can chose to dont use so.

What is the difference between local server and global server? Can we use the same data base for storing data in both the servers?

There is no difference on registering with domain, because register need only yourdomain along with .extension, i.e., for example: yourdomain.com. www is just considered as a subdomain for main domain where it should be added in a dns for every hosting account by hosting providers.

http://www.xyz.com is the same as http://xyz.com on most web servers. i.e. one can reach the site with or without the www in front. What some web hosting companies don't get is that this creates a SEO problem - duplicate content. One needs to select which version of the url they are going to promote and 301 permanent redirect the other one to it.

There is a big difference. Some sites do not solve this problem. If you go to www.domain.com and domain.com will have examples of their land on different pages. Advice, you must declare and fix your www determination. This can also help to have a better search engine optimization results.

Hi there, this is effected a keywords position ex. two page same, title tag, meta tag, keywords etc. this issue resolved via prefix OR google webmaster tool in set a www or without!!!

I have all along wondered the need to prefix URLs with these three w's. I feel validated that there is an entire group out there which has been thinking along the same lines.

As others have said, it's theoretically possible to have http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com return different sites, but that would be horrible from a user point of view (no-one would expect that, and it would just confuse them).

You should pick one form (with or without www) and stick with it, and have the other do a "301 redirect" to it. So if you want to omit the "www", then "http://www.domain.com" should 301-redirect to "http://domain.com".

This avoids duplicate copies of the page being recorded by search engines (i.e. one with and one without the www in the address). If you are only making the change after many pages have *already* been indexed from the alternate address, you probably want to redirect to the same page, e.g.:-

http://www.domain.com/subfolder/blah.htm

should 301-redirect to

http://domain.com/subfolder/blah.htm

Ditto if you have another domain you want to redirect to domain.com.

Never have the same content directly returned from more than one domain, else you have the risk of it being seen as duplicate content (even though it isn't from your point of view). The user can still type in the alternate form, but should get the page via a 301-redirect.

Sorry, I can't give technical details on how to set up the 301 redirect.

- Smichy