7 ms·

I understand the article walks through the technical aspects. However, having seen a lot of non-savvy users use Internet, I am firmly with WWW. Probably because

by arihant 10y ago

I understand the article walks through the technical aspects. However, having seen a lot of non-savvy users use Internet, I am firmly with WWW. Probably because of association and all major "established" companies using www, people associate it with strength. I have learned it to be important in similar ways that a .com extension is. If the site did not have www, most people assumed it is probably made by kids, who do not have www yet. See, most people do not understand that www is not a domain like .com which you have to buy. So for average joe consumer, it signals strength. For an enterprise customer, it probably does too. So unless your product is for savvy users or zen-like designers, I'd stick with www. A lot of people think that naked domain is cleaner. It is actually not, since the average mind is conditioned to read www.x.com, and you have https://x.com https://x.com. It's cleaner in the sense that a face is cleaner without a nose.

tristanperry 10y ago
I agree and not sure why you've been downvoted originally. I've also seen plenty of non-tech-savvy users use the internet who seem almost confused if a website isn't 'using www'.
- Ensorceled 10y ago
  Exactly. We used a naked domain for a while and had to switch because a percentage of people kept getting "worried" about the missing www. I think if you have a tech target audience this doesn't matter but for general consumers, it's still an issue.
d0vs 10y ago
I have trouble believing this to be honest. Any hard evidence?
- arihant 10y ago
  It's anecdotal. However, it should not be hard to test it out with 10 non-tech friends. I also don't recall having my credit card on file on any website that uses naked domain. That's pure correlation. Which goes on to show how valid any hard evidence on this issue would be. Performing your own little user study is the best way to take a stance, I believe.
edmccard 10y ago
>having seen a lot of non-savvy users use Internet, I am firmly with WWW As an anecdotal counterpoint, at our family Christmas, I mentioned a few different urls, spelling out "www" each time; one of my nieces said "why do you keep saying 'www'", and one of the other kids said "that's how old people find websites." After some discussion, it turned out that nearly everyone over 30 habitually wrote urls with "www" at the front, and everyone under 18 always omitted it.
- karlshea 10y ago
  At least we've mostly gotten away from "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash..."
  - bbcbasic 10y ago
    I heard https mentioned in a spoken url on the radio recently. And they said "that's with secure encryption"
  - tomatsu 10y ago
    I always thought it was odd when they go with the whole "http://www." http://www." voodoo ritual, but then they skip the final slash after the domain.
    - derefr 10y ago
      AFAIK the lack of a path part is allowed in an HTTP URL per RFC2616. http_URL = "http:" "//" host [ ":" port ] [ abs_path [ "?" query ]] > If the abs_path is not present in the URL, it MUST be given as "/" when used as a Request-URI for a resource (section 5.1.2). Browsers may differ on whether they auto-fix schemaless URIs, but they're all required to fix path-less URIs. So it's much "safer" to use them.
  - edmccard 10y ago
    Or even worse, "h-t-t-p-colon-backslash-backslash..." from people who were used to saying "c-colon-backslash"
wruza 10y ago
>It's cleaner in the sense that a face is cleaner without a nose. Otoh, our noses (and balls) are ugly as hell. We just used to them during evolution.
ccannon 10y ago
This is the biggest load of B.S. I have read in a long time. Using www is purely a technical decision as the blog post expertly explains. End of story.
partiallypro 10y ago
Some browsers hide the www from the URL (even if it's actually there,) so I think customers notice it less.
eridius 10y ago
> If the site did not have www, most people assumed it is probably made by kids, who do not have www yet. This doesn't make any sense to me. There's literally no correlation between "made by kids" and "doesn't have www", and no reason why anyone would ever make that association. You've provided what appears to be a bullshit justification for a completely unsubstantiated and fairly outlandish claim.
jlgaddis 10y ago
10-15 years ago, it was popular to see "www.example.com" everywhere (television ads, etc.). Nowadays, though, I can't think of the last time I saw "www" in ads, printed materials, etc. I think the younger generation, in particular, is more accustomed to the lack of www.
ksec 10y ago
This. It also depends on your site's target audience. For a programming site or other I.T technical site it properly wouldn't matter. For others, as recent as 2014 i still witness the following. A: What was the site address ? B: something.com A: OK. [Start typing www.something.com ] For the majority, i.e those who dont know HN, and dont know jack about computers, WWW means website. While in recent years this is much less of a problem because Google has become our gateway to Internet and Apps taking over, WWW is still ingrained into their mindset. And agree on the .com.

by arihant 10y ago

tristanperry 10y ago

I agree and not sure why you've been downvoted originally. I've also seen plenty of non-tech-savvy users use the internet who seem almost confused if a website isn't 'using www'.

Ensorceled 10y ago
Exactly. We used a naked domain for a while and had to switch because a percentage of people kept getting "worried" about the missing www. I think if you have a tech target audience this doesn't matter but for general consumers, it's still an issue.

d0vs 10y ago

I have trouble believing this to be honest. Any hard evidence?

arihant 10y ago
It's anecdotal. However, it should not be hard to test it out with 10 non-tech friends. I also don't recall having my credit card on file on any website that uses naked domain. That's pure correlation. Which goes on to show how valid any hard evidence on this issue would be. Performing your own little user study is the best way to take a stance, I believe.

edmccard 10y ago

>having seen a lot of non-savvy users use Internet, I am firmly with WWW As an anecdotal counterpoint, at our family Christmas, I mentioned a few different urls, spelling out "www" each time; one of my nieces said "why do you keep saying 'www'", and one of the other kids said "that's how old people find websites." After some discussion, it turned out that nearly everyone over 30 habitually wrote urls with "www" at the front, and everyone under 18 always omitted it.

karlshea 10y ago
At least we've mostly gotten away from "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash..."
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  I heard https mentioned in a spoken url on the radio recently. And they said "that's with secure encryption"
- tomatsu 10y ago
  I always thought it was odd when they go with the whole "http://www." http://www." voodoo ritual, but then they skip the final slash after the domain.
  - derefr 10y ago
    AFAIK the lack of a path part is allowed in an HTTP URL per RFC2616. http_URL = "http:" "//" host [ ":" port ] [ abs_path [ "?" query ]] > If the abs_path is not present in the URL, it MUST be given as "/" when used as a Request-URI for a resource (section 5.1.2). Browsers may differ on whether they auto-fix schemaless URIs, but they're all required to fix path-less URIs. So it's much "safer" to use them.
- edmccard 10y ago
  Or even worse, "h-t-t-p-colon-backslash-backslash..." from people who were used to saying "c-colon-backslash"

wruza 10y ago

>It's cleaner in the sense that a face is cleaner without a nose. Otoh, our noses (and balls) are ugly as hell. We just used to them during evolution.

ccannon 10y ago

This is the biggest load of B.S. I have read in a long time. Using www is purely a technical decision as the blog post expertly explains. End of story.

partiallypro 10y ago

Some browsers hide the www from the URL (even if it's actually there,) so I think customers notice it less.

eridius 10y ago

> If the site did not have www, most people assumed it is probably made by kids, who do not have www yet. This doesn't make any sense to me. There's literally no correlation between "made by kids" and "doesn't have www", and no reason why anyone would ever make that association. You've provided what appears to be a bullshit justification for a completely unsubstantiated and fairly outlandish claim.

jlgaddis 10y ago

10-15 years ago, it was popular to see "www.example.com" everywhere (television ads, etc.). Nowadays, though, I can't think of the last time I saw "www" in ads, printed materials, etc. I think the younger generation, in particular, is more accustomed to the lack of www.

ksec 10y ago

This. It also depends on your site's target audience. For a programming site or other I.T technical site it properly wouldn't matter. For others, as recent as 2014 i still witness the following. A: What was the site address ? B: something.com A: OK. [Start typing www.something.com ] For the majority, i.e those who dont know HN, and dont know jack about computers, WWW means website. While in recent years this is much less of a problem because Google has become our gateway to Internet and Apps taking over, WWW is still ingrained into their mindset. And agree on the .com.