# Why the www in front of a domain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 9, 2004, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377 "2004-06-09T00:43:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/1 "2004-06-09T00:43:39Z")
What is the reason for putting www at the start of a domain name? ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/2 "2004-06-09T00:57:14Z")
The www is the host name. Usually, web servers have www as the host name. It’s just a convention, though, not a rule; if you look at the address line of your browser you’ll see that this page is hosted by “boards”. Www is the usual name for web hosts, but there are other kinds of hosts. ftp servers usually have ftp as the host name, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Berkut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e57/32.png) [@Berkut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Berkut)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/3 "2004-06-09T01:02:20Z")
I had a long post ready, but How Stuff Works has a better explanation than I can come up with. > **[Why do some Web sites include www in the URL while others don't?](https://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/question180.htm)** > > Once you spend a good deal of time on the Web, you start learning the language of internet addresses. Have you come across sites that use something in place of www? (Hint: you're on one now!) ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/4 "2004-06-09T01:37:43Z")
Basically, it’s just a convention that makes it easy for system administrators to move services from one server to another, and makes it easy for users to know which server provides a certain service. For example, [www.hansprestige.com](http://www.hansprestige.com), [ftp.hansprestige.com](http://ftp.hansprestige.com), and [mail.hansprestige.com](http://mail.hansprestige.com) all refer to the same server. But if I start getting so much web traffic and so much spam that one machine can’t handle it all, I could move the web site and mail server to different computers, change the host names “www” and “mail” to refer to the new machines, and everything would keep working without anyone knowing the difference. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/5 "2004-06-09T02:02:41Z")
This reminds me of the kid who asks where he came from and the dad gives him the whole birds & bees lecture. Then he says, “Bobby came from Ohio.” www stands for World Wide Web, which is to say the world accessible to you by HTML protocol using a web browser. As other posters said you can use any name you want but everybody just started using www for their web servers by convention. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/6 "2004-06-09T05:10:43Z")
This is kind of a drive-by shooting in the fight against ignorance, but remember that writing just “[straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com)” instead of “[www.straightdope.com](http://www.straightdope.com)” wouldn’t have made much sense to people back when the “www means web server” convention came about. It would have been the early 90’s when that decision was made in most server admin minds, and to be honest “The World Wide Web” was not the most widely used protocol at the beginning of that period. FTP, NNTP and even GOPHER fer chrissakes were still running strong back then as protocols, as opposed to being the outdated specialty-use protocols that they are now. ---
**Author:** ![daffyduck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ec9cab/32.png) [@daffyduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daffyduck)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/7 "2004-06-09T06:22:34Z")
_and even GOPHER fer chrissakes were still running strong back then_ Raise a glass to Archie! ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/8 "2004-06-09T06:52:08Z")
Why, it’s for the same reason that we put “1-” in front of our area codes. ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/9 "2004-06-09T10:32:35Z")
> [@daffyduck](#): > > _and even GOPHER fer chrissakes were still running strong back then_ > > Raise a glass to Archie! And don’t forget his girlfriend “Veronica” ! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/10 "2004-06-09T10:57:19Z")
It is interesting that this convention has engendered the misconception that ‘www’ is some sort of top-level hierarchical container in which all different websites reside (i’ve come across quite a few people who thought this - I suppose it is because of directory trees - maybe they are thinking it is www/site/page). ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/11 "2004-06-09T11:18:50Z")
How about www2 or www3? What is the origin of these? ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/12 "2004-06-09T11:51:58Z")
> [@Dog80](#): > > How about www2 or www3? What is the origin of these? If you need to set up two or three different web servers on the same domain, this is just about the most unimaginative way possible of naming them. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![LuckySevens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@LuckySevens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LuckySevens)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/13 "2004-06-09T12:29:29Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > If you need to set up two or three different web servers on the same domain, this is just about the most unimaginative way possible of naming them. 😉 thats network admins for ya 😉 ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/14 "2004-06-09T12:43:35Z")
> [@LuckySevens](#): > > thats network admins for ya 😉 Well, in all fairness it’s been a long time since I’ve actually noticed a www2 or a www3 myself. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/15 "2004-06-09T12:46:07Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > Well, in all fairness it’s been a long time since I’ve actually noticed a www2 or a www3 myself. I did it once in '96 ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/16 "2004-06-09T13:01:11Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Why, it’s for the same reason that we put “1-” in front of our area codes. Not everyone in the world puts “1-” in front of their area codes – only people in Region 1, i.e. Canada and the USA. People in Mexico for 52- in front of their area codes, people in the UK put 44- in front of their area codes, people in Australia put 61- in front of their area codes. The telephone world is a lot bigger than Region 1. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/17 "2004-06-09T13:58:58Z")
> [@Eleusis](#): > > I did it once in '96 ☹ Actually… not web domains, but I’ve set up [ftp2.mydomain.com](http://ftp2.mydomain.com) and possibly even [ftp3.mydomain.com](http://ftp3.mydomain.com) (and maybe [sql2.mydomain.com](http://sql2.mydomain.com) ) Wasn’t sure what else to call a second FTP server. 😉 (Checks the DNS entries for my [ckenworthy.net](http://ckenworthy.net) personal domain.) Hmm… no ftp3, but at some time I did set up [sql2.ckenworthy.net](http://sql2.ckenworthy.net), [mysql2.ckenworthy.net](http://mysql2.ckenworthy.net), and even ‘[website2.ckenworthy.net](http://website2.ckenworthy.net)’ (Didn’t have a website or a website1) ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/18 "2004-06-09T16:03:12Z")
If you look up to your address bar, you’ll notice that the domain name for the SDMB doesn’t start with “www”: [http://boards.straightdope.com/](http://boards.straightdope.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/19 "2004-06-09T20:27:06Z")
As another example, the Massachusets Institute of Technology was of course one of the early pioneers of the new protocol, and they called their web server “web”. To this day, the official URL of the MIT website is [http://web.mit.edu](http://web.mit.edu) (although nowadays, apparently [http://www.mit.edu](http://www.mit.edu) will get you there, also). ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Slant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c57346/32.png) [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377/20 "2004-06-09T21:23:57Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > Well, in all fairness it’s been a long time since I’ve actually noticed a www2 or a www3 myself. I just noticed [www22.verizon.com](http://www22.verizon.com) today. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-www-in-front-of-a-domain/249377.md?page=2)