Preserved Topic: URLs (Page 1 of 1)

I was wondering why some websites don't include the "www" in the URL. For example, http://pagename.htm vs. http://www.pagename.htm. Where is the http://filename.htm page located on a server?

I don't need an indepth description, but a brief explanation would be helpful to give me an idea of whats goin' on!

Thanks
CRO8

i dont know the specifics, but it depends on how the server is set up. if the server is set up correctly, both with and without the www will work.

------
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

Okay, it has to do with the... ah... realy quick, The "www" part of the address is an example of a third level domain. The "yourname" part is an example of a second level domain and the ".com" is an example of a top level domain. err... soooo if you get a http://blablab.html, you should also beable to call it by http://www.blabla.com. If that don't help then some one else can probably help! heh. i love this place.

heh! well whatd'ya know. . . both do work. i just tested w/o "www" and all my sites still came up. Cool.

And yes-eyezaer, I love this place too.

CRO8

sites could also set it up so something like http://forums.ozones.com would goto a certain page on the site

ok,
now, people buy a domain, like 'ozoneasylum.com' or whatever.
when they do, and until regulations change, they own and can introduce any, uh, what did eye call them? any 'third level domains' that they please.
the default is www, just to clarify to people that they are on the world wide web.
nowadays, people are seeing the benefits of using this text area for something else...
like nothing: 'ozones.com'
or so 'sub-divide' their URL, eg with subsidary companys, or different areas (redbooks.ibm.com)
or like with tripod.com - membername.tripod.com - simply links to what would have been lotiss
Paranoid (IV) Inmate

From: San Diego CA USA
Insane since: Mar 2000

Hey that is something that I have kinda been wondering but was too afraid to ask about - when a domain name is sub-divided, like

anothername.something.com

how does one do this? Could someone please clarify and expand?

thanks and don't offended by my lack of knowledge!

That's done by your web host. You'll have to ask them to change DNS (domain name server) settings...

Once you own a domain, you can do any damn thing you please with the third (fourth, fifth...) level domains. Excepting in bigger organizations (with bigger networks), the third-level part is usually a hostname. Hostnames don't necessarily map one-to-on onto physical hosts. In my networking fiefdom, we have physical boxes running Apache bound to dozens of IP addresses (and hostnames), and we have single hostnames that map onto multiple boxes (for low-rent load balancing).

Cool guys like Mr. Max know how to take it further, and rewrite requests dynamically, so that

http://froodyuser.bigassisp.net/

gets translated into

http://boxfullofbozos.bigassisp.net/somebozo?bozoID=froodyuser

.

Your web hosting provider almost certainly does this (if they run Apache).

Big honker sites like CNN use it to divert static content requests away from their dynamic servers, so

http://www.bigasssite.com/images/glorch.jpg

can be rewritten as

http://images6.bigasssite.com/www/glorch.jpg

.

When you own the domain (and have control of the name server), you basicall are the 800-pound gorilla. HTH.

thanks alot! I did not know that, and appreciate your answers!

That's called an ALIAS. You can have tons of aliases, as we do with our 40-50 domains. As mentioned, if it's properly set, both should work. And technically, the one WITHOUT www works by default on most systems. You have to add the www alias. So I always have to laugh at sites that don't work without the www.

And watch how you do things if you're setting up a new site. You statistics will consider pages as separate pages when doing this. For example, http://www.domain.com/index.htm would be tracked differently than http://domain.com/index.htm. That can be a pain when dealing with advertisers. The best solution is to put a BASE HREF meta tag in your header. That way, fewer pages are likely to have this problem.

Pat Richard
A pixel is worth a thousand words.
http://www.gurusnetwork.com
ICQ 23113317

can you guys point me towards some reference sites that you know of off the top of your head that so that I can learn more?

(i too want to become a pokemon master)