Do You (or Your Server) WWW? »
Back around the dawn of time - which is to say, nearly twenty years ago, in the web world - the World Wide Web came into existence. Technically, for those keeping track, this was in 1989. According to legend, the first web server was named nxoc01.cern.ch - indicating definitively that servers do not require a preceding www in order to function correctly.
In fact, if you're reading this, it is quite apparent as well, because it comes from jayseae.cxliv.org - and if you put a www in front of that, it will fail, again demonstrating this principle. So where did we get those pesky three characters? They come from a fairly long-standing tradition of naming servers in networks all over for the services which they provide. Thus, a web (www) server is named, simply "www". An ftp server is named (wait for it) "ftp". When the server name is added to the domain name - for instance, cxliv.org, you would get www.cxliv.org and ftp.cxliv.org, respectively.
