# URL prefixes (like www) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 27, 2002, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275 "2002-03-27T00:03:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/1 "2002-03-27T00:03:10Z")
We are all familiar with websites that start with www (World Wide Web). I have seen some sites that start with www3 or www5. I have also seen websites with no www of any kind. What’s the difference? Are there others? ---
**Author:** ![Newton\_meter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/57b2e6/32.png) [@Newton\_meter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Newton_meter)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/2 "2002-03-27T00:12:36Z")
Technically, the URL begins with a “scheme”, which is probably “http” in the case you’ve given. If it is an http URL, it has a colon (🙂 and two slashes (//), followed by an Internet host. The difference is that they are different hosts, with different names. In one case, the http server is on a machine named “www.whatever.whocares.xxx” and in the other it is “www3.idontknow.something.xxx”. Everything you could ever care to know about URLs is [here](http://www.w3.org/Addressing/). Especially relevant is [RFC 1738](http://www.w3.org/Addressing/rfc1738.txt) wherein the syntax of URLs is discussed. From section 3.1: ```auto host The fully qualified domain name of a network host, or its IP address as a set of four decimal digit groups separated by ".". Fully qualified domain names take the form as described in Section 3.5 of RFC 1034 [13] and Section 2.1 of RFC 1123 [5]: a sequence of domain labels separated by ".", each domain label starting and ending with an alphanumerical character and possibly also containing "-" characters. The rightmost domain label will never start with a digit, though, which syntactically distinguishes all domain names from the IP addresses. ``` ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/3 "2002-03-27T02:38:27Z")
The “www” on a website is purely arbitrary and there is no reason (other than convention) to use it. Domain names have two main elements: the name of the domain (straightdope) and the suffix (currently .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org, and .net). Anything before these elements are assigned by the domain user. It was usually the name of a server on the domain. When the WWW was set up, a lot of domains assigned “www” as the name of the server. But there is no rule that you need to use that. You can use any valid characters (note at the top of this you see the domain [http://boards.straightdope.com](http://boards.straightdope.com)). You can name the individual computer something that duplicates the name of another domain, and as long as it’s on your domain, it’ll work fine. Some domains don’t bother with the first part; others will automatically redirect you to the right computer (try going to [amazon.com](http://amazon.com), for instance). I’d assume www2 is used to direct to the second webserver, either because they need two or because the first one was obsolete. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/4 "2002-03-27T03:17:42Z")
> [@](#): > > (currently .com, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org, and .net) As well as one for each country, such as .us and .uk. > [@](#): > > When the WWW was set up, a lot of domains assigned “www” as the name of the server. At the time, of course, the web was not such a dominant protocol, and it was useful to distinguish the web server from the ftp or telnet or pop3 or smtp or gopher or any of a variety of other servers. Much easier to use standard names, rather than remembering that your web server is named “Bill” while your telnet server is named “Monica”. (Actually, monica is the name of a remote telnet server that I used frequently in college) ---
**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:** [March 27, 2002, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/5 "2002-03-27T03:34:16Z")
There are also some new top-level domains; .info and .biz are the most common of these, but according to [IANA](http://www.iana.org/domain-names.htm), there are also. .coop, .aero, .museum, and .name. And there’s the ‘infrastructure’ domain, .arpa, which I will _not_ try to explain at this hour. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![dqa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/6 "2002-03-27T03:36:47Z")
Google can be reached at w.google.com If you’re at a public computer, this will save you a precious two strokes. Big deal. However, if the browser remembers previous address entries and autocompletes your typing, you just have to type “w.” from then on, since no other URLs were likely entered in this way. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/7 "2002-03-27T03:41:44Z")
E.g., my daughter’s web page’s server’s domain starts with “fff”. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/8 "2002-03-27T04:32:06Z")
you should be able to resolve any domain name without the “www” in front of it if it “normally” has one. AFAIK it is similar to not having to type the “index.html” or “index.htm” or “default.htm” or whatever in (which is why you should always be able to access a sight with a trailing slash). [http://straightdope.com/](http://straightdope.com/) [http://google.com/](http://google.com/) [http://thespark.com/](http://thespark.com/) I almost never put the “www” in. ---
**Author:** ![Neptune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@Neptune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neptune)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/9 "2002-03-27T04:55:30Z")
Sometimes leaving out the www. doesn’t work. It’s up to the network administrator to set up the server so that [bogusname.com](http://bogusname.com) is pointed to the same server as [www.bogusname.com](http://www.bogusname.com). They might point to two different web servers. That happens sometimes. I hate when a commercial on TV leaves out the www., but then you go to that address and it doesn’t work. The IBM ads in Canada tell you to go to ibm.ca, but there’s no server at that address. It’s bad enough that they didn’t account for it to begin with, but to actually tell people to go to that address is another thing. ---
**Author:** ![Baron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9de0a6/32.png) [@Baron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/10 "2002-03-27T05:00:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by erislover \* > \*\*you should be able to resolve any domain name without the “www” in front of it if it “normally” has one. AFAIK it is similar to not having to type the “index.html” or “index.htm” or “default.htm” or whatever in (which is why you should always be able to access a sight with a trailing slash). > > [http://straightdope.com/](http://straightdope.com/) > [http://google.com/](http://google.com/) > [http://thespark.com/](http://thespark.com/) > > I almost never put the “www” in. \*\* Usually…but occasionally I find one that doesn’t. It’s not related to the default page on the server, but to the DNS record, which is what translates domain names (like [www.google.com](http://www.google.com)) to an IP address. Most admins set the record for the root domain ([google.com](http://google.com)) to the same IP as the web server ([www.google.com](http://www.google.com)) to make sure that people get to the site with less trouble. Same for [w.google.com](http://w.google.com) and ww.google.com–they are there to get you to the site even if you type it incorrectly. Not really a feature of any software, but an admins trick. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/11 "2002-03-27T05:07:57Z")
When you see urls with a www1 through wwwn prefix, it usually means that a clustered server is handling the load for that website. At high volume sites, multiple, identical servers will be linked together by a load balancer. Each server has a copy of the website or server code. When a request for a particular page or function comes in, the load balancer routes the request to one of the machines based on a pre-defined set of rules. For example, you connect to [www.popularsite.com](http://www.popularsite.com). The load balancer knows that machines 1-4 are busy, so it hands the request off to #5, and the url that pops up in your browser is [www5.popularsite.com](http://www5.popularsite.com). eBay is a good place to observe this frmo an end user perspective. At a properly configured site, [www.popularsite.com](http://www.popularsite.com) or [popularsite.com](http://popularsite.com) will bring you to the same page. Anything before the domain name in the url represents the internal structure of the site and _usually_ doesn’t matter to the end user. Hosting sites are the most notable exception: [YourHost.SomeHostCompany.com](http://YourHost.SomeHostCompany.com). _I turned off Auto-parse URLs - **DrMatrix** _ ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/12 "2002-03-27T05:09:16Z")
Aww crap. I should never post this late. I didn’t realize the sample url I provided pointed to a real site. Don’t click on it. It’s an example. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Mirage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Mirage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirage)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/13 "2002-03-27T05:15:38Z")
**.com** refers to the giant DNS server somewhere that has a directory of all the computers under it which possess .com names, like [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com) and [yahoo.com](http://yahoo.com). The same thing holds true with them. When your computer wants [www.straightdope.com](http://www.straightdope.com), it asks the computer (returned by .com as [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com)) what the IP address of **www** is. It returns you the address of the server that’s a ‘child’ of **[straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com)** which possess the **www** name. When I do my comp sci homework I log into **solaris.remote.cs.rpi.edu** which tells my computer to look for the **solaris** server off the **remote** server off the **cs** server off the **rpi** server off the **edu** server. The **www** is a convention for referring to the machine that is responsible for web page hosting on a particular domain. If you wanted to FTP in, you’d most likely communicate with **[ftp.something.com](http://ftp.something.com)** because that’s most likely (by convention) the machine that’s set up for FTP usage. This doesn’t mean that all web sites have to start with **www** , it just means that if you have a domain like **[straigtdope.com](http://straigtdope.com)**, most people expect that your _HTML_ server will reside at **[www.straightdope.com](http://www.straightdope.com)** by default. ---
**Author:** ![samboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@samboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samboy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/14 "2002-03-27T05:21:52Z")
I always found it funny that, with everyone snapping up easy to remember domains like [fish.com](http://fish.com) or [help.net](http://help.net), every address starts with www. ‘W’ is the longest of all the letters to pronounce. So on TV or radio ads your neat little “Fish dot com” blows out to “Double U Double U Double U dot fish dot com” IMHO “they” should make it shorter to say, like aaa or something we can turn into a word. _But_ I don’t think whoever started using “WWW” umpteen years ago was thinking about the speed it takes to say [www.coke.com](http://www.coke.com) in a $3 million 30 second SuperBowl commercial. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/15 "2002-03-27T06:03:04Z")
Thanks for the correction on the sub-domain resolution. ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2002, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/url-prefixes-like-www/100275/16 "2002-03-27T08:51:32Z")
Samboy: the other point of note is that saying ‘www’ takes longer than saying ‘world wide web’. Some abbreviation!