Why is it that some web sites require the www. before the name and some web sites do not require the www. and why do some web sites have ww3. or ww4. ? What does that mean?
2007-12-24 10:46:21 · 10 answers · asked by mr. wong 4 in Computers & Internet ➔ Other - Computers
It’s to do with how sites or pages are hosted on large servers. Either owned by that company or subcontracted to a web hosting company. In other words the site is too large for one sever, or may have been split up for reliability purposes.
If you see ww3. ww4. etc means the site is hosted on a server cluster. When you go to that site you’ll see the url ww3.whatever.com in your browser's address bar:
This shows that the site is running on sub-domain ww3. within the whatever.com’s primary domain.
As an example: Madonna University:
http://ww3.madonna.edu/library/mcgregor_project_overview.htm
In the address bar delete everything except http://ww3.madonna.edu
and hit
http://www.madonna.edu/
Different sections of the University site have been broken up amongst several servers.
The above is the main use. There are two others I know of:
----------------------------------------------------------
A) ww3. ww4. could also be used as an alias to hide the main identity of a site, I think this is mainly used so that email has a clear route to the ports and server its hosted on. its not mixed up with other traffic.
B) Google also use ww3. ww4. as stages of their page-ranking update process, but you’ll never see these unless you’re a webmaster going behind the scenes to see if your site’s ranking has changed.
2007-12-24 11:23:17 · answer #1 · answered by Tim D 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It really comes from the days where addresses had all kinds of formats, eg: telnet.example.com or gopher.example.com or ftp.example.com etc. It just meant you didn't need to guess what kinds of server was at the otherend. In those cases it would be a telnet, gopher or FTP server rather than a web server. If you don't know....I wouldn't ask. :-)
Most sites shouldn't need it, but a few badly configured ones do.
As for ww3 etc. Usually that means you're connecting to web server number 3 but doesn't have to be. It's one way to deal with very high traffic sites over multiple servers and usually you get shoved onto one of the servers for whatever you're doing.
A better way is known as round robin DNS like Google uses, but that's a whole new ball game.
2007-12-24 10:53:32 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
Although not required to do so, many sites start an address with "www" to let you know the address is a website. For example www.yahoo.com, vs mail.yahoo.com Sometimes, websites register only one address with the nameserver and you have to use the full correct name to get to that site. Others may use "alias" records so that you don't have to spell out the name (yahoo.com and www.yahoo.com will both take you to www.yahoo.com). Many sites may have multiple websevers and differentiate the servers, but usually you reach the main page with "www". As necessary, the servers will "load share" to spread across other servers or move you over to another server (such as a "secure" server) as necessary.
2007-12-24 10:58:22 · answer #3 · answered by JD_in_FL 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
That designation is part of the web address. It used to be you always needed the http://www designation before an address, but they have made things faster today so you don't need that part now.
Not sure who "they" is!!! But I like not having to type that whole thing in now!
2007-12-24 10:51:47 · answer #4 · answered by MBlessed (SOC) 5 · 0⤊ 2⤋
www stands for world wide web. so you can look at a website from like the other side of the world
2007-12-24 10:49:26 · answer #5 · answered by Strawberry15 2 · 0⤊ 4⤋
a Domain Name is just the address of your site you need a Host or your own server to be the location of that address.
2016-03-16 06:13:24 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
im not sure but, www-means world wide web. but i'v never heard of ww3 or ww4
2007-12-24 10:50:09 · answer #7 · answered by P3RF3CTLY FLAW3D 4 · 0⤊ 4⤋
Interesting question!
2016-08-26 13:46:37 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Never thought about that too much
2016-07-30 10:34:24 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
it is all in the web browser for examlple you dont have to put
http://answers.yahoo.com
you can put
answers .yahoo.com
or
www.answers.yahoo.com
it doesn't matter it's all in the way how your browser reads were you type in the http:// adress
2007-12-24 10:55:37 · answer #10 · answered by brandonnajera44 1 · 0⤊ 3⤋