Category Archives: Domains

WWW or no WWW?

To optimize your search rankings, you should decide whether your URLs should have the “www” in front of them or not.

This is a topic everyone has been arguing about lately. There are advantages to both.

Reasons to use WWW

  • Non-tech people need something to tell them “this is a web address.” The two things that tell them that are www and .com. If you don’t put the www in, then people rely on there being a “.com”. In an age when there is a shortage of .com domains, do you really want to reinforce the association between URLs and “.com”? You could use “http://” but do you really want to put that horrible-looking thing on your business card (or whatever you’re putting your domain on)?
  • It adds balance to the URL. The three characters (plus a dot) even things out, as you have “.com” (or some other TLD) after the domain.
  • When I want to go to Webmaster-Source.com, I type “webmaster-source” into the URL field and press CTRL+Enter. The browser adds the “www.” and “.com” into the URL. If you don’t use the WWW in your URL, then I have to wait an extra 3 seconds for the redirect to the www-less URL.

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Got .Web? Alternatives to .Com Domains

“All the good domains are taken!” is one of the most common exclamations among new bloggers. They’re partly right. You have to be real creative when you register a .com or .net domain these days. Domains are taken for legitamate reasons most of the…