Don't Back Down

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.

This is complicated by the fact that, these days, many of the servers that are available to the public are the only public presence for a domain. This certainly isn't the case for a large company, such as Cisco or Microsoft, but for an individual, such as myself, or perhaps many of you reading this, there may be a single server with a single service - such as the web. In this case, the meaning of www is severely diminished. After all, if there is just one server, is there really a need to identify it?

There could be an argument that you still should, just in case. After all, you might want to add a second server, say for public ftp services, or for mail or something. But since those could still be identified by their server names, there really is very little need. After all, the web server is likely to be the server most commonly accessed by the public, so why make it harder for people to do so?

Sure, it's easy these days for those using Internet Explorer to press CONTROL-ENTER to automatically add www in front and com in back of the domain name. If you're using Firefox, you can do that and more - SHIFT-ENTER gives you www and net while CONTROL-SHIFT-ENTER gives you www and org. But do we really need the www?

Very rarely. Enter no-www.org.

Since so few instances really exist these days of needing the www, the proposition is to drop it whenever possible. After all, if you don't need it, why not abolish it? Typing a few extra characters may be nice, but not having to say those nine extra syllables (or three, if you shorten it to "dub dub dub", "triple dub" or even "wuh wuh wuh") would really save some time.

So I present you with the options.

Class A. This is the most common compliance level, as evidenced by the count on their site. At the moment, nearly 61% of the domains are compliant to the Class A level. This means that the domain responds both with and without the www.

Class B. Slightly more strict, and currently the optimal compliance level, this actually reminds folks that the www isn't really needed. Rather than simply making the site available in both forms, it actually redirects people who request the www form of the site to the non-www page. As of this writing, 15% of the domains on the validated list are Class B.

Class C. The most stringent compliance level states that the www version doesn't respond. Naturally, this also makes your site somewhat less accessible, so you want to use this with caution (and also explains why it's not recommended). As of now, just .5% of domains have this level of compliance.

The numbers don't add up to 100% - this is because a full 15% of the domains who have tried to validate have achieved the Wall of Shame, where the traffic is either blocked or redirected to another domain entirely. The remainder? I don't know. The total numbers on the validation page don't add up either, so I can only do so much. Some 3000 are missing in action.

The only real problem I found (which may explain part of it): Third-level domains, also called subdomains (like this one). You see, jayseae.cxliv.org is actually considered a third-level domain, which means that the best I can do is a Class B ranking for cxliv.org, according to the rules. This, even though www.jayseae.cxliv.org doesn't resolve. When I validated, it returned as though I submitted cxliv.org, so I think it went through - but it may not have done so. Still, I would have liked to have achieved a Class A listing.

I'm all for dropping the extraneous characters because I think it increases not only readability of the URL, by providing more space in the address bar but makes addresses more portable when passing them verbally. But I also realize that ultimately, it doesn't matter all that much. What do you think? Will you update your server?