# www or not www?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 26, 2000, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096 "2000-02-26T20:35:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096/1 "2000-02-26T20:35:00Z")
What determines if you need a ‘www’ or not in your URL?
[www.straightdope.com](http://www.straightdope.com)
Vs.
[straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com)
I know some sites work either way & some don’t but what is the determining factor?
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### Author:  [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096/2 "2000-02-26T20:49:00Z")
…your answer is [right here](http://howstuffworks.com/question180.htm).
Basically:
> [@](#):
>
> In the case of web sites that happen to work without the “www” prefix, it simply means that the administrator has decided that if there is no prefix, the IP address returned should be the IP address for the web server.
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I never touched him, ref, honest!
[Crusoe Takes A Trip](http://www.fervent.co.uk/)
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### Author:  [@TheNerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheNerd)
#### Post date: [February 26, 2000, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096/3 "2000-02-26T21:53:00Z")
The page **mattk** linked explains it pretty well. But for those of us too lazy to read the whole thing, just know that the first part of a URL (“www”, or “boards” or whatever) is just the name of the machine on which the webserver is running.
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### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2000, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096/4 "2000-02-27T00:39:00Z")
Yes, the article does answer it well. But how do you know if YOUR web site can do without www? I know, type it in & check but I think that sometimes the browser sees it in part if its in cache.
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### Author:  [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2000, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096/5 "2000-02-27T01:44:00Z")
Ok… www is just one of an infinite number of things that can come first in a domain. You can go to [www.fathom.org](http://www.fathom.org) you can also go go [stephen.fathom.org](http://stephen.fathom.org) and get somewhere entirely different. “[fathom.org](http://fathom.org)” is the _domain name_… [anything.fathom.org](http://anything.fathom.org) is called a “subdomain” and can be anything. Commonly subdomains are named for usage… like [mail.fathom.org](http://mail.fathom.org) [ftp.fathom.org](http://ftp.fathom.org) [www.fathom.org](http://www.fathom.org) etc. The standard convention is to name your webserver [www.\_\_\_\_,](http://www. ____ ,) your mail server mail.\_\_\_\_\_ etc. As the web has grown, many have dropped this convention and just entered their base domain with the same record as the www. prefix. It is just a dns record… a line in a file that says “blah blah blah” is “blah blah blah”… (like “[fathom.org](http://fathom.org)” is “206.161.122.160”)
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–
“it’s all real”
“I KNEW IT!!!”
O p a l C a t
[www.opalcat.com](http://www.opalcat.com)
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### Author:  [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2000, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096/6 "2000-02-27T01:50:00Z")
Here is an example of a DNS record:
$ORIGIN [fathom.org](http://fathom.org).
3600 IN A 206.161.122.160
www 3600 IN A 206.161.122.160
That shows fathom with no prefix and fathom with a www prefix.
The only way to tell other than trying is to look at the DNS records, which aren"T publicly available.
* * *
–
“it’s all real”
“I KNEW IT!!!”
O p a l C a t
[www.opalcat.com](http://www.opalcat.com)
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2000, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/www-or-not-www/14096/7 "2000-02-27T02:12:00Z")
The “www” is optional, but is used to indicate a website. The actual domain name is “[straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com)” (think e-mail).
When you have been assigned a domain, you can specify specific servers within that domain (e.g., “[home.aol.com](http://home.aol.com)” is a different machine than “[www.aol.com](http://www.aol.com)”). The “www” was designed to specify the web server at a particular domain, but now is standard on the Internet. Sites often redirect something with the “www” missing to the right computer.
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“What we have here is failure to communicate.” – Strother Martin, anticipating the Internet.
[www.sff.net/people/rothman](http://www.sff.net/people/rothman)