Is there any difference between forcing a website to have a URL with "www" or without it?
depends on what you have from your domain name !! some sites load only with www prefix ...
(2012-01-20, 05:32 AM)Shadowdare Wrote: [ -> ]Is there any difference between forcing a website to have a URL with "www" or without it?
No not really. WWW is just kind of like a sub-domain that points to the main domain. Personally I try to force none-www.
I do it for old people. They are used to it.
(2012-01-20, 07:09 PM)Aristotle Wrote: [ -> ]I do it for old people. They are used to it.
This, my parents and grandparents have "www" drilled into their head. They always type "www.google.com" or "www.bbc.co.uk"
Technically google.com is not a FQDN (fully qualified domain name) so you shouldn't really use the non-www version. However, considering most sites have www and non www pointing to the same content it really doesnt matter.
I think it doesn't matter. For SEO is probably wiser to force the usage of one of them. Just pick one and be consistent.
(2012-01-20, 07:49 PM)labrocca Wrote: [ -> ]I think it doesn't matter. For SEO is probably wiser to force the usage of one of them. Just pick one and be consistent.
This ...
Make sure that your WWW and non-WWW have the same content, or one redirects to the other...
I personally prefer "www" at the beginning...
I chose to have the WWW on my main site because in the future I may eventually have subsections (like downloads; static files like javascript, CSS & images; or program-specific things like game servers) that will have to be their own systems. By including the www, I can have consistency through all of my systems from the beginning, without having to restructure my site when I need to expand. However, that's a personal choice, and your reasoning may be different. Some people will only have one main site, and for those people a non-www domain works just fine.
I force www only for consistency reasons. i rarely type it when entering a URL myself
I redirect www to no-www. You don't use @mail.doman.com for email, so why use www for your site? Be consistent.