# http://www.com/ **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 20, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715 "2007-12-20T16:17:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/1 "2007-12-20T16:17:59Z")
How is such a web address possible? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/2 "2007-12-20T16:25:39Z")
The registered domain is “[www.com](http://www.com)”, just like “[straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com)”. The preceeding bit, a “subdomain” (usually “www” but can be anything at all, such as “boards”), is optional, so can be omitted. So normally you’d see www.[domain name].com, or in the example, [www.www.com](http://www.www.com). However, in this case they’ve omitted the subdomain, and because you’re used to seeing “www” as a subdomain, it looks weird. ---
**Author:** ![ishamael69](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b9e5f3/32.png) [@ishamael69](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ishamael69)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/3 "2007-12-20T16:28:00Z")
[Here](http://www.howstuffworks.com/dns.htm) is an article on how DNS works. Basically, back in 1998, Original Web Ventures Inc. (or some previous owner) bought the domain name [www.com](http://www.com), just as the Reader bought the name [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com). ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/4 "2007-12-20T17:27:49Z")
Not every website has to have www in the domain address. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/5 "2007-12-20T17:36:52Z")
Google, for instance, uses www, www2 and www3 as prefixes. Here’s the difference between them [explained:](http://www.stadtaus.com/en/php_scripts/google_dance_tool/) > [@](#): > > As a webmaster you might know that the search engine Google does an update mostly once a month. Several days before the updated database is available at [www.google.com](http://www.google.com) you can get a preview of the new data index at [www2.google.com](http://www2.google.com) and [www3.google.com](http://www3.google.com). While that update period the search results vary from time to time so the update got the name Google Dance. > > To compare the results of all three servers at a glance there exists several tools on the web which show the result pages of Google side by side or one below the other. It goes on to give a tool for comparing results from the sites, but that’s only of interest, I should have thought, to webmasters. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/6 "2007-12-20T17:47:34Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] Not every website has to have www in the domain address. [/QUOTE] Yes. Often, you have _[www.whatever.com](http://www.whatever.com)_ for the World Wide Web (WWW) server, _[ftp.whatever.com](http://ftp.whatever.com)_ for the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server, or _[smtp.whatever.com](http://smtp.whatever.com)_ for the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) mail server, and so on. Sometimes you’ll also get subdomains named according to function, for instance _[boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com)_ for these message boards, or _[secure.whatever.com](http://secure.whatever.com)_ for a company’s secure login area. But if there’s only one server, and it’s serving up World Wide Web pages, it will usually be called _www_. These tend to outnumber servers with other names these days. Often, the bare second-level domain will point to the web server as well: requesting _[www.whatever.com](http://www.whatever.com)_ and just _[whatever.com](http://whatever.com)_ will yield the same thing. I notice that _[www.com](http://www.com)_ does not do this: _[www.www.com](http://www.www.com)_ does not work. Trivia: The World Wide Web in Esperanto is the “Tut-Tera Teksaĵo”. So Esperanto-language web servers are sometimes named _ttt_. But even then, they’ll have a _www_ name as well. ---
**Author:** ![tonedef](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@tonedef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonedef)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/7 "2007-12-21T04:03:03Z")
I’ve been looking up .coms that available because im going to buy one. and all versions like [www.wwwdotcom.com](http://www.wwwdotcom.com) [www.com.com](http://www.com.com) are all taken! ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/8 "2007-12-21T05:07:11Z")
I have a suspicion that every word in the English language is taken as a .com subdomain. Maybe you could make something up, or try French? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/9 "2007-12-21T05:19:00Z")
I pulled down my dictionary, opened it at random, and typed in the first word I saw. [hemp.com](http://hemp.com) is taken; it resolves to [everything.hemp.com](http://everything.hemp.com). [Pacific.com](http://Pacific.com) is tennis racquets. [Bookmark.com](http://Bookmark.com) is a porn site. [Helpless.com](http://Helpless.com), [fadeless.com](http://fadeless.com), [cotinga.com](http://cotinga.com), [lysergicaciddiethylamide.com](http://lysergicaciddiethylamide.com), [marrow.com](http://marrow.com), and [superhet.com](http://superhet.com) all go to curiously-generic pages with generic graphics and generic link lists. I think they’re owned by namesquatters and are for sale. ---
**Author:** ![tonedef](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@tonedef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonedef)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/10 "2007-12-21T07:54:05Z")
Hey Sunspace some sits might come up with something BUT are available for sale. trying search for what available on something like [namecheap.com](http://namecheap.com) ---
**Author:** ![fifty-six](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@fifty-six](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fifty-six)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/11 "2007-12-21T08:16:17Z")
Or goto Whois.sc Not only will they tell you is it is available they will tell you who owns it their address and phone numbers when it was originally registered and when it expires its page rank and all sorts of other interesting info. If you stumble around on their site you will discover some cool features as well. Some you have to pay for but other are free. Nameceap is great place to register domain names. I have about 30+ with them. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/http-www-com/430715/12 "2007-12-21T08:18:41Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] I pulled down my dictionary, opened it at random, and typed in the first word I saw. [hemp.com](http://hemp.com) is taken; it resolves to [everything.hemp.com](http://everything.hemp.com). [Pacific.com](http://Pacific.com) is tennis racquets. [Bookmark.com](http://Bookmark.com) is a porn site. [Helpless.com](http://Helpless.com), [fadeless.com](http://fadeless.com), [cotinga.com](http://cotinga.com), [lysergicaciddiethylamide.com](http://lysergicaciddiethylamide.com), [marrow.com](http://marrow.com), and [superhet.com](http://superhet.com) all go to curiously-generic pages with generic graphics and generic link lists. I think they’re owned by namesquatters and are for sale. [/QUOTE] Thats called wildcard domain redirection. Your ISP/DNS provider has set up a system that redirects unresolved queries to a search page (in return for advertising revenue). It’s ok if it only works with http (ie, via a (possibly transparent) web proxy at the ISP). When pure DNS queries resolve wildcards, some software will break - the software expects nonexistant DNS names to fail DNS queries, not resolve to a wildcard. There have been lawsuits about this issue in the past. The search pages provide tracking for unregistered domains so that price can be set based on demand/traffic. Also note that if you do a **whois** to identify a possible domain name, the domain may be automatically registered to someone else, so that you actually have to buy it off them at an inflated price. Si