Blog Journeys of a Lifelong Learner

Should websites use the subdomain www by default or not?

The www was originally used to designate an address on the world wide web, as compared to other types of networks. Now it is understood that addresses are connected to the world wide web, making the www seem redundant.

Some developers avoid using www altogether. At the time of this writing, paulstefanort.com forces a non-www URL.

While I am attracted to minimizing the number of characters required for a URL, I am seriously considering reverting back to a policy of using the www subdomain for websites.

Here are some of the strongest reasons I see for doing this:

• Other services (including webmail, calendaring, and document sharing) use subdomains.
• The use of the m subdomain has become a standard practice for providing a mobile web version of a site.
• Security certificates are generally associated to a particular subdomain, making e-commerce projects easier for www-prefaced URLs.

The following subdomain scheme is highly attractive to me:

• www.somesite.com — for the standard ("desktop") web interface
• m.somesite.com — for mobile devices
• mail.somesite.com — for webmail
• docs.somesite.com — for documents
• calendar.somesite.com — for calendaring
• somesite.com (without domain) — automatically redirecting to www.somesite.com or m.somesite.com, depending on the device in use