www. or non www.

[toastedone]

Hi, I am feeling really confused right now, I am not sure if i have set my site up as www. or non www. how can I tell?

Is there a difference when backlinking?

Or adding to GWMT?

[Kindred]

it doesn't matter to google, as long as you keep it consistant.

As for whather you are using it or not...  go into smf admin > server settings and look at your forum's url setting.

personally, I always use www and I force htaccess to redirect any non-www links to use www.

www is just another (the baseline) subdomain.
I have 10 or so other subdomains on my site, so www makes a difference to me.

[toastedone]

It is all a bit beyond, my level of understanding to be honest.

Ok in the server settings it says www.

the non www. returns a 301

So are www. and non www. considered the same site by google?

[Kindred]

if you have a 301, then yes....    301 is a "permanent redirect"

However, to do it properly, you should use htaccess to force non-www to reformat as www.

[toastedone]

If i search my site without the www. it ends up with the www. so I guess that is correct.

My concern is with things like backlinks, if someone links to my site using the non www. will that affect the amount or quality of backlinks to my site?

[Chalky]

I don't see why it should.... 

[Mick.]

I dont use it.

[ApplianceJunk]

I don't use www.

[Chalky]

Me neither (nor I..?) but it must be such a common mistake-a-to-make-a  for every single site on the web that linkers either use www when they shouldn't or don't when they should, that penalising the websites for it must be more effort to Google than it's actually worth...

[ApplianceJunk]

Using www. is so yesterday.

[Vector’s Shadow]

It is all a bit beyond, my level of understanding to be honest.

Ok in the server settings it says www.

the non www. returns a 301

Server can apply to physical computers as well as the software that runs on them.

Once upon a time, there were few computers on the Web. If you were a school and you wanted to connect three of your computers as servers, you would name them by their function. Nowadays, you'll see all kinds of names, from Sparky to Neo. But back then, people were much less creative. They named their servers according to their intended function. Like mail for the mail server. Or ftp for file server. Or www for page server. But they only registered one domain, say myschool.edu. So how do they make all 3 work with just one domain? Put the name of the computer first! So, to access mail, you'd go to mail.myschool.edu. For FTP, ftp.myschool.edu. To see the school site, you guessed it, www.myschool.edu.

Easy? Well, nowadays, when you connect to your domain, you are connecting to one of who knows how many machines, and that name may not even be known to you if you're not the only one on that machine. So what the provider does is allows the server software to use a directory name just like a computer name. If you have a directory named www, it may allow you to use  www.mypage.net, even though your registered domain is mypage.net and the name of the machine is Annihilator. But since the server knows where to find your files and, from your perspective, it's the only server you're going to have your domain pointed to, you can safely omit any sort of prefix. The 301 is due to a redirect that's already set up there for you. There is a good chance that you can override this. www is obsolete unless you actually have a computer with that name and other computers (or folders, but that's a bit advanced) that need to be accessed within the same domain.

Since so many people will use www to try to go to your site anyway, do the reverse of what it is now. Set up your site to use no www and advertise it as such, but set up a redirect to it from www.

[Chalky]

 

Thanks for explaining that VS, I just learned something 

[Kindred]

that is a nice story but is only .5 percent of the actusl...,   

[Chalky]

Well I guess he had to simplify it for folks like me 

[Kindred]

also,  www is not obsolete. ... it is the dtansard subdomain,  but it a subdomain like any other. I have 7 subdomains on my site.,,, so www makes sense.

[Vector’s Shadow]

Don't be splitting hairs. In the sense that I used it in, it is obsolete.

@ChalkCat: You're welcome.

[Vector’s Shadow]

that is a nice story but is only .5 percent of the actusl...,   

If you include the quotation in those .5%, that would at least make the word Server true.

[Kindred]

I am not splitting hairs. you made an absolute statement which was wrong.  and like that, you made your story dtatement as if that was the whole expkanation... ehich is also wrong.

[Vector’s Shadow]

Here's an absolute statement for you. It is a logical fallacy to say that I'm wrong without providing any arguments to support your statements. If you have a better way to explain this to someone who has no clue, do. If not, your statements are pointless.

[Arantor]

Here's another absolute statement: most of what you said was irrelevant for practical purposes. Most people neither need to know, nor care, nor in many cases will even be able to find out whether they have a physical server or not to play with. It is simply an appliance they can use some percentage of resources of.

Since so many people will use www to try to go to your site anyway, do the reverse of what it is now. Set up your site to use no www and advertise it as such, but set up a redirect to it from www.

Cite your source. Given that all my domains have both non www. and www. and I'm seeing far more hits on the non www. domains than I am the www. ones, my experience disagrees with your opinion.

The behaviour you describe regarding subdomains is not consistent from one host to another, though it does have most of the characteristics attached to cPanel.

I'd note that SMF itself does some of its own handling regarding domain redirections.

[Vector’s Shadow]

Who cares? If you didn't know what www was for, you know after reading the post. Whether this has any practical purposes is irrelevant. That wasn't the point.

[Kindred]

well, for one, you are wrong about the required bit...  since each application uses a different port, thesubdomain www vs mail vs ftp, etc was for organizational purpose.  and it still serves that purpose for sites which offer multiple connection and application purposes.  it also serves org puposes on dites, like mine, which have 7 subdomains.

you seem to do this a lot... presenting your opinion as the absolute and only answer, when the truth is that your answer is one, partial answer.., and is sometimes even incorrect. then you try to defend your mistakes by attakjng the other opinion, accusing "logical fallacy", when your own original statement is already making that very mistake.

[Vector’s Shadow]

well, for one, you are wrong about the required bit...  since each application uses a different port, thesubdomain www vs mail vs ftp, etc was for organizational purpose.  and it still serves that purpose for sites which offer multiple connection and application purposes.  it also serves org puposes on dites, like mine, which have 7 subdomains.

A-ha. And that would be extra-easy to understand to a newbie. You are a teacher? I really don't envy your students.

you seem to do this a lot... presenting your opinion as the absolute and only answer, when the truth is that your answer is one, partial answer.., and is sometimes even incorrect. then you try to defend your mistakes by attakjng the other opinion, accusing "logical fallacy", when your own original statement is already making that very mistake.

These are my posts. Of course they are my opinion. If you are foolish enough to think that I'd be quoting specs every time I say something, let's see YOU do it first. And be flawless about it. We're not supposed to humans after all, we're just quoting machines, aren't we? Set an example. But you can't even bring yourself to support your statements with evidence while dishing out personal attacks.

I remember using that phrase only once, with you, this time around only. If you believe otherwise, find it and show it to me. Otherwise you're only making yourself look like you're trying find an excuse to attack me with zero evidence.

[Arantor]

You realise that some of the things you've been saying have implied, if not outright said, you believe there to be logical fallacies in some of the assertions we've made.

[Vector’s Shadow]

I realize that "you" may be singular or plural, but thought it was obvious that I was addressing somebody who wasn't you (singular).

No, your own assertions had none that I can detect. My only problem with yours is that they don't take into account the fact that rather than trying to be 100% factual, or practical, I was trying to be easy to understand. To that end, what I said was, apparently, successful. People, in my experience, don't really remember too many details, but they remember concepts. If I were to start explaining how things really are and their complexities, I hope you can agree that it would have been of no use to someone who has no idea what I'd be talking about.

[Arantor]

Oversimplification is often a very bad idea especially when it comes to technical matters. It allows people to believe they know more than they actually do, and some of the simplifications you've given are skirting very close to the line of being inaccurate rather than generalised.

[Kindred]

exactly

I would rather include too much detail and have them ask for explanation than to dumb it down to the point where they thing they understand it...but it is close to or actually wrong...

[Vector’s Shadow]

Oversimplification is often a very bad idea especially when it comes to technical matters. It allows people to believe they know more than they actually do, and some of the simplifications you've given are skirting very close to the line of being inaccurate rather than generalised.

If you expect an argument, you're not gonna get it. It often is, and a lot of times it does make people believe they know more than they do. But I'm used to working with people who need to be explained the tiniest of things in such ways that would be both at least somewhat accurate and extremely easy to grasp, or else they just get none of it at all. It's a tradeoff. Of course, in person you can adjust to be more factual if you see the person being able to understand easily, while here the feedback is after the fact. I don't know, maybe I should just remove the whole post since it bothers people so much, and replace it with a link to something more technical, more factual...

[ApplianceJunk]

Hmm...

[mashby]

It is all a bit beyond, my level of understanding to be honest.

Ok in the server settings it says www.

the non www. returns a 301

Server can apply to physical computers as well as the software that runs on them.

Once upon a time, there were few computers on the Web. If you were a school and you wanted to connect three of your computers as servers, you would name them by their function. Nowadays, you'll see all kinds of names, from Sparky to Neo. But back then, people were much less creative. They named their servers according to their intended function. Like mail for the mail server. Or ftp for file server. Or www for page server. But they only registered one domain, say myschool.edu. So how do they make all 3 work with just one domain? Put the name of the computer first! So, to access mail, you'd go to mail.myschool.edu. For FTP, ftp.myschool.edu. To see the school site, you guessed it, www.myschool.edu.

Easy? Well, nowadays, when you connect to your domain, you are connecting to one of who knows how many machines, and that name may not even be known to you if you're not the only one on that machine. So what the provider does is allows the server software to use a directory name just like a computer name. If you have a directory named www, it may allow you to use  www.mypage.net, even though your registered domain is mypage.net and the name of the machine is Annihilator. But since the server knows where to find your files and, from your perspective, it's the only server you're going to have your domain pointed to, you can safely omit any sort of prefix. The 301 is due to a redirect that's already set up there for you. There is a good chance that you can override this. www is obsolete unless you actually have a computer with that name and other computers (or folders, but that's a bit advanced) that need to be accessed within the same domain.

Since so many people will use www to try to go to your site anyway, do the reverse of what it is now. Set up your site to use no www and advertise it as such, but set up a redirect to it from www.

I like your explanation! The last paragraph is likely the part that I'll semi-agree with. To me, www. versus non-www are one and the same. You just have to pick one. htaccess is the way to go as to which one you choose. Yes, www. is a subdomain, but it's a reserved subdomain.

To the OP, just pick one and go with it. All of the cool kids aren't typing URLs with www. anymore.