Why use www?

[adrianmacneil]

I used to be strongly in the no-www camp for aesthetic reasons, but have since come around. There are legitimate reasons why having www (or any subdomain) is important in any large site.

The CNAME argument is obsolete since most DNS providers support ALIAS records now.

The static no-cookie argument doesn't really matter since you could always serve static content on a separate domain altogether (ex: fbcdn.net).

However, if you want to run hosted services on subdomains, you run into an important security issue. For example, say you have Zendesk hosted on support.mysite.com. You don't want to leak session cookies from mysite.com to support.mysite.com. In most browsers, you can just specify the cookie domain and it will only be sent to the root domain. However, NO versions of IE respect this (even IE 10+) [1]. So your IE users will always leak session cookies to hosted services on subdomains. In any reasonably secure site, this is unacceptable (especially when you start using other hosted services for status.mysite.com, careers.mysite.com, etc etc).

Unfortunately, this is pretty much impossible to work around, unless you want to ban IE users from using your site entirely.

Solution: Just use www (or any other subdomain, if you want to be different) from the start, and save yourself the headache of migrating later.

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2009/08/20/winin...

[ecesena]

What about internal services with subdomains? What if, for instance, you have myservice.mysite.com and you want to share cookies among www and myservice?

I mean, would you recommend to set cookies with domain mysite.com and thus have a different domain for external services, like support.mysite.net, or...? (genuinely asking, I don't mean to criticize, sorry if the english is not perfect :)

[raamdev]

I ran into that IE bug a few years ago while working on some PHP code. For those curious what that bug might look like, I did a quick writeup of my findings [1] and posted the solution that I used to work around IE's bad behavior.

[1] http://raamdev.com/2010/php-session-permission-denied-errors...

[Aardwolf]

So the only argument remaining, is IE?

[Tomte]

Me as well.

The really big argument for me was: laypeople just expect the "www". Losing it means having to repeat and explain things. It's just not worth it.

[walden42]

Leaking cookies to subdomains IS a problem, but it shouldn't be too big of a deal security-wise if they are encrypted (as they usually are).

[AhtiK]

Performance penalty is no longer an issue with AWS: CloudFront support for root domain/zone apex has been there since June 2013 [1].

DNSMadeEasy has ANAME for somewhat similar purpose [2].

It's worth noting that AWS CloudFront works ONLY with AWS Route 53 for the proper latency-based routing with root domains. Yes, DNSMadeEasy ANAME works with CloudFront too but it's not smart about returning the closest edge to the user.

[1] http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2013/06/11/announc...

[2] http://www.dnsmadeeasy.com/press-release/dns-made-easy-intro...

[tszming]

The issue with cookies mentioned in the article is still valid, which also affect performance.

[the_mitsuhiko]

> Performance penalty is no longer an issue with AWS: CloudFront support for root domain/zone apex has been there since June 2013 [1].

And it does it through an hardcoded alias and not a cname. How clever.

[akerl_]

For the opposite case:

http://no-www.org/

[Kerrick]

And for the humorous case:

http://www.www.extra-www.org

[psychometry]

OK, but that doesn't address any of the issues presented in the Yes WWW article posted here. I don't even see an argument against WWW other than convenience or aesthetics.

[lucisferre]

Does that site actually make a case or do they just not like the "www" being there?

[excitom]

I dislike www since it is the world's worst acronym, having three times as many syllables as the words it replaces.

[janaagaard]

In Denmark we usually say V-V-V when we spell it out. Confusing? Defenitely yes. But we also call a BMW a BMV and a WC is just a VC.

[pling]

That's why, at least in the UK, we use "dub dub dub".

[hmsimha]

When saying your domain name aloud, you never have to say www if your naked domain automatically redirects to your www. subdomain. Most of the time when people say it, it's completely unnecessary. I suppose you could use another subdomain to fulfill the same purpose of 'www' but 'www' is such a common convention that you would then probably need to redirect your users from www to whatever other subdomain you use.

[zephjc]

I've liked to saw 'wa' (pronounced like わ/ワ) since the '90s but I've never used it in serious conversation.

[tdammers]

Less talk, more type.

[Aardwolf]

It's not a U, it's not even a vowel, and if it's anything double, it's a double V. Half of it certainly does not look like a U.

[cyphunk]

> You should use www because today you have a small web site, and tomorrow you want a big web site. Really big.

nope, sorry. i have no desire for my sites to be big. i prefer rememberable to a few, over big. next. can someone tell me why these people are actually pushing www use? So far the reasons they state make no sense. It sound's like a bunch of grammar addicts getting into the technologist scene.

> Twitter, for instance, which does not use www, had to buy new domain names just for static content.

and, who cares? If you become a really "big" website I guess you can afford another domain name.

> You may not run into any of these issues today, but as your web site grows, you eventually will.

What I learned from this. When my site get's so big that I can sniff coke off of male escorts I should hire someone to deal with purchasing more domains for our cookie content issue. thanks, solved.

[adventured]

"You should use www because today you have a small web site, and tomorrow you want a big web site. Really big."

Don't tell these little sites: stackoverflow.com, rapgenius.com, foursquare.com, twitter.com, instagram.com, ask.fm, wordpress.com, imgur.com, vimeo.com, hootsuite.com, github.com

[_greim_]

No reason is given why you should use www. The only arguments presented here are a couple technical issues with having naked domains. But you could have w.example.com or foo.example.com and address those same problems.

[jpollock]

You use www for the same reason that the ftp server is ftp.X and the mail server is mail.X. This allows organisations to have logical service locations separate from their current configured location.

So, www is your web service.

If you'd like a proposal, add a new type of DNS record, like the MX record, specifically for HTTP.

[shabble]

Isn't this what the SRV[1] record type is designed to solve generically?

Getting adoption at the client end is likely the limiting factor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRV_record

[protonfish]

No, that is what the TCP port number is for.

[esbonsa]

I thought the port would take care of this

[d0ugie]

Perhaps fewer would avoid using naked domains if we hadn't settled on the visually widest and verbally longest to recite letter. Kudos, twitter.

[Thiz]

A better solution instead of www would be:

web.example.com

The way it should have been since day one.

[mhartl]

MIT still uses it:

    $ curl -I mit.edu
    HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
    Server: AkamaiGHost
    Content-Length: 0
    Location: http://web.mit.edu/
    Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 03:12:18 GMT
    Connection: keep-alive

(It looks like they were a little sloppy, though; that should probably be a 301 instead of a 302.)

[grkvlt]

Since the original TBL web server was at 'info.cern.ch' I think everyone has been Doing It Wrong since then, and we should replace 'www' with 'info' everywhere. I'm off to create 'info.not-www.org', I think...

[endergen]

Cloudflare recently announced support for CNAME functionality from naked domains. See: 'Introducing CNAME Flattening: RFC-Compliant CNAMEs at a Domain's Root' http://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cname-flattening-rfc-....

Obviously www. is extraneous if you can get the CNAME functionality.

[derickis]

Straying off a bit, but I'm using this feature by CloudFlare on my personal site which is hosted on Github.

The CNAME Flattening feature is awesome, and according to David Ensinger (http://davidensinger.com/2014/04/transferring-the-dns-from-n...) there are a bunch of neat performance boosts too.

My site: http://derick.is/

[seoguru]

http://yost.com/misc/nix-on-www.html

"W" is a letter that is not one syllable, for that would be too few, a letter that is not two syllables, for that too would be too few, but a letter, in fact the one letter of all twenty-six that insists upon blathering on and on in its attempt to twist the tongue and overtax the ear, extending to the full three, yes three--three syllables, the legal alphabetical maximum. But wait, my friend. That is only the beginning. We go on to treble the damages by repeating this freak letter, this monstrosity that is one thing, claims to be two other things, but is really three things, not once, not twice, but a full three times, in a nonometric rhapsody fleshed out to the nines, a compound triplicate triumphant cat-o'-nine-tails tongue-lashing, a nonotuple witches' syllabic brew of treble, treble, toil and trouble. It is enough I say! Nine times enough, in fact. :-)

[hexleo]

In China, for some people if your web site doesn't use www, they will confused. I told him a domain name, he will add www before. orz

[lnanek2]

This is a nice piece about engineering. However, it would be nice to see an A/B test for what the users prefer. The technical drawbacks don't seem large compared to, say, +1% better conversion rate for people seeing your URL in media and typing it into a browser.

[wmeredith]

You could easily promote the naked domain and forward traffic from it to the www version of your site.

[joeyespo]

> You should use www because today you have a small web site, and tomorrow you want a big web site. Really big.

Isn't this pre-optimizing? You can use naked domains today and redirect tomorrow when it becomes an issue (IF it's still a technical issue we need to worry about at that time).

301 is built for this.

Or, when you do become big, this becomes a tiny issues.

> Twitter, for instance, which does not use www, had to buy new domain names just for static content.

Do you think Twitter struggled to afford this in any way?

> You may not run into any of these issues today, but as your web site grows, you eventually will.

Again, a big company can easily afford this. Do things that don't scale. Worrying about www should not be your initial concern.

[kolev]

URLs without www look uglier to me. The www gives you a visual filler space between the cryptic http:// and the domain, but, again, who cares about URLs nowadays? Also, www makes easy to parse out URLs in text. In addition, people will always try www even if your canonical domain is without it resulting possibly in a redundant redirect and/or dual versions of URL being in existence. Lastly, just like www, .com is here to stay. After so much investment in www and .com from advertising, education, etc., don't expect billions to switch away so easily.

[qu4z-2]

Personally I find www. no less cryptic than http://. Additionally http:// is hidden in many browsers these days, so you're left with just {,www.}example.com/ and don't need the filler.

Regarding "who cares about urls nowadays?", clearly the people in this thread making passionate arguments for and against a leading www. care :)

[everydaypanos]

Still in no-www camp!

[serf]

as long as the translation and redirection is done by the browser somewhat seamlessly (which modern browsers seem to have no problem with on correctly setup websites), I am too. Aesthetically 'www' has never been that pleasant looking.

[mhartl]

It is possible to do 301 redirects at the registrar level in a way that preserves the full path, including query strings? This is, I'd like to arrange for

    example.com/home?a=foo&b=bar

to redirect to

    www.example.com/home?a=foo&b=bar

Is there any way to do this without using something more specific like mod_rewrite?

[TazeTSchnitzel]

What's wrong with mod_rewrite?

[sandGorgon]

Can someone comment on the SEO implication? I'm no expert,but I have heard it said that the closer your URL is to the http, the higher weight it is given.

For e.g http://ABC.com/my-seo-url vs http://www.xyz.com/my-seo-url