UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Suggestions and Feedback (OT) To www or not?

This is perhaps a bit off topic but... There can be confusion caused if somone logs into forums by going to http://www.mysite.com/ and then later returns to http://mysite.com/ because the browser won't send the cookie back. I want to embed some javascript in the main page to make sure that either everyone always uses the www or everyone always omits it (if they try to go to the wrong one the browser gets redirected to the right one).

Now the question: Is it better to direct everyone to http://www.mysite.com/ or http://mysite.com/? I'm tempted to go with http://mysite.com because it is shorter, but I see that Ebay redirects to http://www.ebay.com. Is there some advantage to doing it the Ebay way (e.g. could there be trouble if a http://ads.mysite.com is added later--I don't know how these work), or is it arbitrary? Thanks.

Bill Dimm, MagPortal.com - [:red]free feeds for your site.

Yesterday I looked at the cookie documentation and wrote a post about that (bottom).

If the cookie domain would be set to mysite.com instead of www.mysite.com it should work for both with and without the www and you do not need any forwarding.

nòóx

Downhill Rangers

I've posted a reply on the other thread. The domain= stuff just doesn't work.

Bill Dimm, MagPortal.com - [:red]free feeds for your site.

Not getting into the code, I'd suggest using the www.mysite.com. Even though omitting the www is shorter, even novice computer users can spot that www immediately, and it's becoming even more common to have that at the beginning. Having an address like myth.jccc.net really can cause some confusion for some of my newbies. []/testimages/icons/crazy.gif[/]

Just a perspective from someone who is www-less. []/testimages/icons/wink.gif[/]



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Screamers

Thanks for the reply. I think your situation is a bit different though. When someone sees http://myth.jccc.net they could easily think that http://jccc.net or http://www.jccc.net are part of the same site.

In my case the user can enter http://SaveTheFreeWeb.com or http://www.SaveTheFreeWeb.com and they wind up at the same location either way, it's just a matter of whether or not they see a "www" in the URL where they really wind up. One added argument for stripping the www is that it makes the URL more easily fit into the little location box in the browser. I'm a little surprised that you say having a www is becoming more common. Tim Berners-Lee admitted the www was a bad design decision--I figured people would gradually migrate away from it if there was no technical problem with doing so.

Bill Dimm, MagPortal.com - [:red]free feeds for your site.

Well I say www is becoming more common from a complete newby perspective. The addresses I see on TV on both commercials as well as advertising for movies and whatnot nearly always list a URL at the bottom of the screen and the URLs that don't contain www are far and very few between. I surf quite a bit and if I glance at a URL that I have to type in manually, I'm sometimes taken off guard if it doesn't begin with www. Perhaps I'm not visiting the right locations or noticing the right commercials. My perception has been the www has become standard and a lot of businesses are sticking with it for fear of having an 'obscure' and forgettable address. I have no access to statistics though so perhaps there's a trend to move away from this www business that I am not privie to or have not noticed.

My perception is certainly not fact, perhaps others are getting used to omitting the www from addresses and such. But I don't see it myself. []/testimages/icons/smile.gif[/]



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Screamers

Now that I say that, I just visited the stratics.com forum. []/testimages/icons/smile.gif[/] Perhaps I'm seeing what I want to, who knows. []/testimages/icons/crazy.gif[/]

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Screamers

My instinct has always been to go for the short version minus the useless, space-wasting, difficult-to-pronounce, "www" but didn't you conclude in your other thread that for cookie purposes it was the best bet?

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Actually, cookie-wise I don't think it matters. If you go to http://mysite.com and get cookied, then go to http://www.mysite.com the cookie won't get sent (I believe it is the same if you switch the ordering too). I don't know if it's the same in all browsers, but that's the way it works in Netscape 4.7 (I just tried it).

Bill Dimm, MagPortal.com - [:red]free feeds for your site.

Another brite idea bites the dust...

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