Why use www in a url?

[dons1]

HI all!

I am on dial-up and thus very aware of the time taken for some pages to load, especially when there are images present. So I have been pondering whether we really need to use the "www." part of the URL when we hyperlink from a page on our site to another internal page.

With the www. present doesn't the search for the object page not then go out into the world wide web to find it, when all the time it has been sitting in the same directory? If we miss-out the www. bit does "it" know to look for the object page in the same directory, and, if so won't that be faster?

I am new to this and it may be a dumb question but as they say "the only dumb question is the one not asked".

Thanks
John
www.clanfootball.com - "connecting fans around the world"

[Watdaflip]

Re: Speed-up loading by dropping www. for internal page URLs?

It doesn't make a different. No matter what it still have to send a request for whateversite.com to find the ip address of the server that hosts the website, and then whatever time it would take to connect to that ip address to actually load the website.

[dons1]

Re: Speed-up loading by dropping www. for internal page URLs?

Thanks!

This begs the question then that if it does not make any difference, why do we insert "www." at all?

John
www.clanfootball.com - "connecting fans around the world"

[Watdaflip]

Re: Speed-up loading by dropping www. for internal page URLs?

Its just a prefix added for clarity of what the server is. Its not required to be entered (unless someone makes www. in www.theirdomain.com a subdomain). I guess it is just tradition, stigma or habbit that people people use it.

[Bethers]

Re: Speed-up loading by dropping www. for internal page URLs?

I do suggest you use it - as it's what people are used to. And always get to your pages the same way - either with it or without it.

[pristinelife]

Re: Speed-up loading by dropping www. for internal page URLs?

how does BV save our pages? With or without the 'www'?

[LadyEye]

Re: Speed-up loading by dropping www. for internal page URLs?

how does BV save our pages? With or without the 'www'?

Hi Christine:

Your Blue Voda Pages are saved as the name only ... and found via the link that you insert - which contains the www. - so continue with this method to avoid any conflict or uncertainty ...

How are you btw?? Nice to see you.

[dons1]

Re: Speed-up loading by dropping www. for internal page URLs?

Thanks to you all for the explanations and advice. I'll stick with "www." then!

John
www.clanfootball.com -"connecting fans around the world"