Typing a website address with or without “www” usually makes no difference, but excluding it may prevent the browser from finding the site. DNS records can be modified to include a mapped alias.
The quick answer to this question is that there is no difference between the two addresses for most modern domains. For example, typing www.wisegeek.com or wisegeek.com into your web browser’s URL (Uniform Resource Locator) will get you to this site just as easily. However, excluding “www” from some websites may prevent your browser from finding the site. This problem can be corrected by the domain owner. A quick understanding of how the World Wide Web (WWW) works will help you understand the problem.
The Internet is a huge network of computers that communicate using agreed upon protocols. For example, every computer on the Internet is assigned a unique numerical address so that information can be sent and received without being lost. These unique addresses are called Internet Protocol addresses or IPs for short. In the case of a website, the numerical IP is associated with a name, since names are easier for surfers to remember than numbers.
The Domain Name System (DNS) database holds a record for each website, which stores the website’s name and IP address. When you click a link or enter an address into a web browser, a request is sent to the DNS database to resolve the name to the corresponding IP address. If the “www” prefix is omitted and the browser freezes, it is likely that the DNS record does not contain the short version of the domain name: the version without the “www”.
Once the name is found in the DNS database, it is resolved to the corresponding IP. This allows the browser to establish a connection with the server hosting the site. Request the page and provide your IP address, such as sending a stamped envelope with your address. The host server sends the web page to your computer and the transaction is completed.
In the past, many host servers created websites as subdomains under www., following current naming conventions. “WWW” identified the server as a web server, as opposed to a server dedicated to other business. However, as the Internet became more used by the general public, the ubiquitous “www” was often overlooked when entering website addresses into browsers. This resulted in lost website traffic and frustrated surfers, as many DNS records only contained www.example.com and not example.com for the domain name.
Over time hosts began dropping the “www” designation for web servers and domains were created as example.com. To capture traffic that might arbitrarily include “www” in the browser request, DNS records instead included an additional entry to cover for this event. CNAME is the DNS tag that maps an alias to the primary name in the DNS record: in this case the “www.” name version. With this solution surfers could include or exclude www. and reach the site both ways.
DNS records can be modified to include a mapped alias. If you need this service for your domains, please contact your domain registrar.
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