Why no "www"?

[Penners]

Sorry this isn't about period buildings, but I hope one of you IT experts can tell me:

Why doesn't PPUK's URL have a "www." in it? Is it not on the world wide web?

 

[arthurw3]

'www' is not mandatory for a web address any more than anything else, despite the fact that most people use it

 

[shelli]

Wikipedia says

The letters "www" are commonly found at the beginning of Web addresses because of the long-standing practice of naming Internet hosts (servers) according to the services they provide. So for example, the host name for a Web server is often "www"; for an FTP server, "ftp"; and for a USENET news server, "news" or "nntp" (after the news protocol NNTP). These host names appear as DNS subdomain names, as in "www.example.com".

This use of such prefixes is not required by any technical standard; indeed, the first Web server was at "nxoc01.cern.ch",[18] and even today many Web sites exist without a "www" prefix. The "www" prefix has no meaning in the way the main Web site is shown. The "www" prefix is simply one choice for a Web site's subdomain name.

Shelli

 

[arthurw3]

Another example of a url (Universal resource locator..the name in the address bar) without 'www' is
http://free.grisoft.com/

To be even more confusing, you ALWAYS have to have http:// at the front of the web address, but almost all browsers put that in automatically so you don't have to type it. Hope that this is not as confusing as it reads to me.....

 

[MdB]

http://www.periodproperty.co.uk works and so does http://periodproperty.co.uk. This is common with many websites, i.e. http://www.bbc.co.uk and http://bbc.co.uk.

The www bit is known as a subdomain and can be anything. It is standard to have the www subdomain to point to the web server but it really can be anything the site owner likes. Other common ones are the mail subdomain for receiving mail and ftp for the ftp server. Some sites use subdomains for different content. As an example the bbc uses the news subdomain to point to their news website i.e. http://news.bbc.co.uk.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subdomain

 

[skier-hughes]

and if you get deep down into web addresses, they look like this
http://217.37.195.14
Sorry for whoever's address I've typed in if people try it, maybe they'll get busy.
The s on the end of the http is for secure.

 

[MdB]

and if you get deep down into web addresses, they look like this
http://217.37.195.14
Sorry for whoever's address I've typed in if people try it, maybe they'll get busy.
The s on the end of the http is for secure.

The above is an IP address. When you type in an address (such as http://www.periodproperty.co.uk), your computer asks a machine called a DNS server for the appropriate IP address (for PPUK this is 80.175.48.137). Your computer then contacts this computer using its IP address. Your computer will give the website its own IP address when it makes the website request, this way the websites computer knows where to send the return message to.

 

[Moo]

Wow!

(Or should that be "Cor!"?)

 

[Flyfisher]

. . . and the 4 digit IP addresses are soon to be upgraded by the IPv6 scheme because the 4 billion (or so) addresses defined by the current system soon won't be enough!

 

[shelli]

So now Poor Penners has gone for a lie-down

:wink: (will get back in box now!)

Shelli

 

[middi]

This highlights the direction and evolution of the human mind .We can very well explain what cannot be seen but fail to come to terms with mud, straw, logs or twigs which has kept the rain away from our heads for millenia.

Are we going blind ?

 

[Penners]

So now Poor Penners has gone for a lie-down

...thinking to himself, "Me and my big mouth."

Thanks to everyone for your cogent explanations. The phrase "too much information" springs inexplicably to mind.

But I asked for it, and I have my answer. Many thanks.

 

[Nemesis]

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