new thread
Hi,
What is the "official" address of this message board? It's available at http://www.the-light.com longhair but many of the links on the site (but not all) refer to http://the-light.com/longhair. I use my browser history to see which messages I've read but this is thrown off when some of the posts are read under one name or the other, because IE considers these different sites. Did anybody else notice this?
Rick
the "www" is simply a naming convention, and is not neccessary at all.
For example, you can type in thatballguy.com, or www.thatballguy.com, and both will take you to the same ip address.
That "Ball" Guy
www.thatballguy.com
Technically (I mean at the programming level by that) the www is not simply a convention that is ignored. It has to be programmed in. However, almost all web sites are programmed to work with or without it.
The Internet started at large universities and defense agencies, and they had lots of servers. Each server had a name that went before the main name such as navy.mil or berkeley.edu. A small function of the vast computer installations at such institutions was to serve World Wide Web requests. It became common to name THAT server "www".
Now the Internet has become so important that just about everybody, including those two examples I gave, has the web site programmed to come up even if no server name is listed at all.
Web addresses actually start with "http://", and some software will add that in for you if you start something with "www", and that can be handy. Typing "www" is easier than typing "http://", so sometimes that's a conveninent reason to use the "www".
Also, in many contexts a reader may not realize a string of characters is a web address. By putting "www" in front, the author leaves no doubt.
The main concern most people have with this issue is that they have to be consistent if they visit a site often. Otherwise all the recently visited links won't be purple. Web browsers consider "the-light.com/longhair/" and "www.the-light.com/longhair/" to be two different web addresses when they make text coloring decisions.
That slash after "longhair" is another similar issue. Technically it has to be there, but most servers will add it in if you leave it out. There is a quirk with Victor's server that you don't see often, though. While adding the slash in, it will also add in the "www". This means that, if you want to visit the site without the "www", you have to be sure each time to put the slash in.
Bill
Great explanation! However, nobody ever mentioned whether or not this site is promoted using the "www" or not. I'm guessing that it's "official" address is the one without it since the few links on the site that are absolute point to that address.
Also, isn't the www just like any other subdomain in that it can be programmed to go to a different path on the server than that of just the 2nd level domain alone?
I realize that this forum isn't the place for this kind of discussion so I'll stop here. Now does anybody have any advice on my other post below this one?
Yup.
Victor prefers to not use the www, from what he told me once. But as everyone has said, it will work with it or without.
Bill
