www.example.com vs example.com?

Question

The website I built my girlfriend is not resolving on her Mac when she types www in before the domain name. Is it her browser or do I need to set up a www redirect somewhere?

Does it work on your machine? If yes, what browser is she using? This has nothing to do with the mac. — , Jun 25 '09 at 04:32
I know this is a nitpick, but example.com/net/org were reserved especially for examples, use them! :P — , Jun 25 '09 at 04:34
where you registered the domain? (in order to give you suggestion on how to configure the DNS as easy as possible) — Magnetic_dud, Jun 25 '09 at 07:11
I registered at Namecheap.com and host through servage.com. The only dns setup I can do at namecheap is to point is at servage name servers. — Bryan, Jun 25 '09 at 18:04

score 17 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 30 '09 at 18:56

17

I usually set the DNS records like this:

@  IN A  123.123.123.123
www  IN A  123.123.123.123

You could, of course, use a CNAME for the www but I prefer to use A records if not necessary. Also you may (or may not) prefer to use an Alias instead of a redirect.

You set it up in Apache like this:

<VirtualHost 123.123.123.123>
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    ...
</VirtualHost>

edited Aug 30 '09 at 18:56

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jun 25 '09 at 08:14

Massimiliano Torromeo

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Precise and correct. – pauska Jun 25 '09 at 08:16
Quite right! Additionally, I *always* add that ServerName/ServerAlias, respectively with and without the www. precisely for this reason. Many sites nowadays (look at your location bar right now) are opting to drop the www. – msanford Jul 15 '09 at 00:01
I mean, *respectively without and with*. – msanford Jul 15 '09 at 00:02

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 25 '09 at 07:11

On your DNS management area for your domain you need to add a CNAME record, this basically means the www record will point towards the IP for yourdomain.com:

yourdomain.com          300     IN A        123.123.123.123
www.yourdomain.com      300     IN CNAME    yourdomain.com

Most DNS control panels should give you this ability.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 25 '09 at 07:10

If you only have an A record for example.com, people who query www.example.com will not get a valid response that points them to your server. Same goes for the other way around.

I have seen people set their example.com as an A record and then have a CNAME for www.example.com pointing to example.com. But as using CNAMEs is not encouraged (so I hear, I am not a DNS guy), having two A records for both example.com and www.example.com pointing to the same IP is fine too, I guess.

In short, yes, you need to setup a DNS record for www.example.com as well as for example.com. A redirect will not work, since it is not possible to successfully resolve both hostnames in DNS.

This is because of the Google 'juice' is then split. You want to pick one or the other but not both. The one that is not picked should issue a 302 redirect to the correct name. — Jauder Ho, Jun 25 '09 at 08:01

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 25 '09 at 06:55

0

Just add an '@' A record and point it to your server's IP address.

answered Jun 25 '09 at 06:55

djdd87

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Adding A record does'nt solve, They are already getting domain.com which is A record , They are asking why www.domain.com is not resolving. For that they have to add an CNAME record that may solve the problem. as Swanny says. – Caterpillar Jun 25 '09 at 10:04

www.example.com vs example.com?

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