Why do we get www.xyz.co.uk & xyz.co.uk

[chris ashdown]

Why are the two options and is it just the web being clever in recognising the missing www

[fergusw]

It's historical.
Originally the sub-domains (mail., www., ftp.,) were conceived to differentiate between the different protocols and services on the internet.
DNS records for domains can contain an individual records for each of the records www., non-www, ftp, mail etc. As the non-www had no associated protocol or service it has also defaulted to the web service, hence most web servers handle requests for www and non-www in the same way i.e. as a request for the web pages for that domain.
We usually recommend an htaccess entry to force non-www to www.

[TraceyHand]

blimey Fergus
I have no idea what you just said

(so I re-read it a few times!)

[fergusw]

blimey Fergus
I have no idea what you just said

(so I re-read it a few times!)

OOps - sorry. Typing without filtering thoughts again. I'll try and alternative response....


"Just because...... that's the way it is!"

[chris ashdown]

Thanks Fergus

AHHHH!!

That better

What do you loose or gain by

We usually recommend an htaccess entry to force non-www to www.

[Duncan Rounding]

Using an htaccess file to force www. means that you will not have problems with the checkout that you occassionally hear about with empty carts - you should also not have odd entries in Google without www.

People are lazy now and many expect to just be able to type in the domain main name and press enter to get to the site they want (I do) rather than also typing in www and the end part of .co.uk or whatever - which is all the more reason to always register the .com version of your domains as well as teh .co.uk versions or similar.

[fergusw]

On the "people are lazy and many expect to just be able to type ... domain name" note, here are a few short cuts for browser address bars:

type domain followed by ctrl-enter = www.domain.com
type domain followed by shift-enter = www.domain.net
type domain followed by ctrl-shift-enter = www.domain.org

[chris ashdown]

Thank you O Mighty ones

Please can you explain how and where I place it

Does the non www. domain, have any effect on Google