

Ask HN: www.site.com or site.com? - newsisan

Which is preferred and why?
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Rhapso
Well, chrome has decided "www." is implied. I am reserving judgment about
this, but in all modern browsers you can ignore the www. Honestly, without the
"www." you have a much stronger chance to define your brand. Which do you
remember better? "www.iamawesome.com" versus "iamawesome.com"?

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CyberFonic
I use www.site.com on all printed material, advertising, etc. It seems to be
more recognisable for casual web users. Redirect (301) site.com to
www.site.com. I think there is a RFC recommending this.

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byoung2
I think www vs. non-www is a matter of personal preference. More important is
that you stick with one and use that sitewide. Don't forget to 301 the other
one to your preferred one. People are so used to typing www before a domain
name, so I stick with that and force www with a redirect.

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imp
I like site.com because the url is shorter. Just a preference. In these days
of browsers on phones and url shorteners, it makes sense to keep the base
domain as short as possible. If you redirect from the www, it takes care of
everything.

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iuguy
It shouldn't really matter, but may well do if you're considering less tech
savvy visitors. Either way, you should support both with a HTTP 301 redirect
to avoid search engines thinking that you have duplicate content.

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Xurinos
Anecdote of dealing with average users: When I am over shoulders and ask
people to go to various sites, the first thing they do is slap in a "www.",
assuming that every web site must begin with it. In some situations, I have to
specifically tell them NOT to put the www.

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RealGeek
Technically, it does not matter. Its more of a personal preference.

How does your domain sounds better? With www or without www?

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underdesign
You can set your server to respond to both, and should.

I love when I can hit two different web pages on the same URL based on whether
or not I included the 'www'.

This is a sign of a poor IT setup.

When you spell it out over the phone, you should include the <http://>,
though. (Haha! It's also useless!)

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beseku
I default, (by which I mean redirect non-'www.') to 'www.' simply because if
you have a few subdomains too, it makes sense in a 'grand scheme of things'
kind of way ...

www. dev. old. cdn.

etc etc ...

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tnorthcutt
It's largely a matter of personal preference, but an important consideration
is that using site.com will mean any cookies served from site.com will also be
served on any subdomains. For more reading on the subject:
<http://www.phpied.com/www-vs-no-www-and-cookies/>

"Basically you should always use www if you're planning to use any other sub-
domains and you want them cookie-free."

~~~
jpcx01
You get to set the domain when setting cookies so its not a huge issue either
way.

~~~
underdesign
Usually, but some browsers won't accept forged cookies. It'll only accept
cookies from the domain it requested from.

