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To use www or not to use www? Most times you do not have to use the "www" prefix to get a desired web site.  For example, typing in siteexperts.com or www.siteexperts.com will both take you to the same site.  Recently, however, I found two sites for which I must use the "www" or I will get an error.  In the first example, I must type www.gmmb.com to get the site.  Simply typing gmmb.com gives me a "403 Forbidden" error message.  In the second example, I must type www.rtcrm.com to get the site.  Typing only rtcrm.com gives me an MSN search page stating "We cannot find rtcrm.com."  Any thoughts on this? Started By jyurow on Nov 8, 2006 at 1:44:42 PM

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ChrisRickard on Nov 8, 2006 at 3:40:46 PM (# 2) It's a DNS configuration. The "default" entry for a domain usually is configured to be the same as the www entry for domains that host web sites. However it doesn't have to be. ja928 on Nov 9, 2006 at 5:35:02 AM (# 3) IE and Firefox both have handy shortcuts so you can just type the domain name like "siteexperts" and then hit Ctrl+Enter and the browser fills in the "http://www." and the ".com". Firefox also has a Shift+Enter version that pops in ".net" kramerman on Sep 5, 2007 at 7:13:45 PM (# 4) We recently went with mod rewrite to optimize our dynamic profile pages and in doing so our programmers eliminated the www from our ezdate123 URL. We have not noticed any negative affects. Our dynamic pages are being indexed more than they were before the mod rewrite. I am curious if doing away with the www will hurt ezdate123 in regards to link back credit. all of our link exchanges use the www. I welcome any commects, thanks Mike TOER on Sep 5, 2007 at 11:01:36 PM (# 5) Yes, could somebody (expert) please explain this www/not-www mechanism plainly?! For even non-experts... RobinAnn on Sep 8, 2007 at 8:03:01 PM (# 6) OK. I'll chime in. Chris Rickard gave the answer - but I understand how 'you' may not have understood. I'll try to explain: Every domain must be setup to answer 'your' query. Some dns servers are set up to automatically do both - some - un-uh. 'you': hello? Is www.gmmb.com there?  dns server says: ...let me check, do I have a configuration setting for that so I can connect you... yup! Ok 'you' - here's the page. ***BLING*** 'you': hello? Is gmmb.com there? dns server says: ...let me check, ummmm - nope - the 'idiot' programmer didn't resolve that address in my database -- here's an error message instead. ***BLING*** I've really boiled it down here -- and I'm not really sure that's the help you need. jyurow, I say if you know how.. use both. If you don't, learn how to. ChrisRickard on Sep 10, 2007 at 9:03:03 PM (# 7) Oops, one correction, RobinAnn. "'idiot' programmer" should be "'idiot' admin" :) RobinAnn on Sep 13, 2007 at 7:09:41 AM (# 8) *heehee*

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