I actually think that the addition of www. to the front of the domain name when no server can be found is a browser thing.
ie if I put in a.co.nz and firefox cannot find a web server there it will look at www.a.co.nz Or is it if it cannot find a dns entry for a.co.nz? I am not sure on that last point. I remember when browsers got clever enough to try the www. if they needed to. I also remember when browsers got clever enough to assume http:// on an address, saving an awful lot of typing. If you want http://www.domain.co.nz/ to point to a different place to http://domain.co.nz/ you are going to confuse people. On 9/21/2006, "Don Gould" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Hi All, > >The following is based on my thoughts, because I've asked this question >as well in the past and these are the assumptions and findings I've come >to... let's not turn this in to a flame war if you think I'm off the mark :) > > >Hi Andrew, > >There is a range of answers a head of me, however they are not all 100% >correct - this one won't be either... > >In my hosting enviornment I can have different web sites on > >www.bowenvale.co.nz >bowenvale.co.nz > >The www was orginally a convention. As time has gone on we've done away >with many conventions. > >I can also specify > >www.syd.bowenvale.co.nz and syd.bowenvale.co.nz and have them both >resolve to different IP addresses. > >The system was designed to be flexiable. > >Our normal convention is that www. and . go to the same site, these days. > >If you do a dig on www.bowenvale.co.nz and syd.bowenvale.co.nz you'll >see they have different A records. > >Further... > >www.hearingbooks.co.nz, www.bowenvale.co.nz, www.thinkdesignprint.co.nz >all resolve to the same IP address. > >The HTTP header from the web browser sends the url to the web server. > >Hence, if you want to see the right web site then you must have the web >server set up for > > >www.hearingbooks.co.nz, www.bowenvale.co.nz, www.thinkdesignprint.co.nz >hearingbooks.co.nz, bowenvale.co.nz, thinkdesignprint.co.nz > > >It's all about flexibility. > >Some have suggested it's a mistake, some have suggested it's lazy. > >These are features by design. > >There is also no reason why you couldn't serve up a web server at >smtp.bowenvale.co.nz as long as the location the A record is pointing to >has an http server deliverying on port 80. > >I'm sure this goes some way to further confusing the isssue. > >Cheers Don > >Andrew Errington wrote: >> On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:13, you wrote: >>> On Wed, Sep 20, 2006 at 07:49:00PM +1200, Don Gould wrote: >>>> RTFM the web site... http://www.clug.net.nz/ isn't the right answer at >>>> present. >>> How about leaving off the totally redundant and stupid waste of 4 >>> characters "www." and let the resource specifier "http" do the work for >>> you? :-) Not that that has anything to do with the problem, of course. >> >> Actually, I'm curious. Can someone please explain why some sites won't >> work *unless* you provide the redundant and stupid 'www.' portion? >> >> For example (in FireFox): >> >> http://jaycar.co.nz Does not work >> >> http://www.jaycar.co.nz Does work >> >> There are other sites like that, and this is just one example to illustrat e >> my point. >> >> Andrew > >-- >Don Gould >www.thinkdesignprint.co.nz - www.tcn.bowenvale.co.nz - >www.bowenvale.co.nz - www.hearingbooks.co.nz - SkypeMe: ThinkDesignPrint >
