Why You Don't Need to Type www Anymore - The History and Technology Behind 3 Letters

The Same Site Opens Whether You Type www or Not

Type either www.google.com or google.com into your browser, and the same page appears. It used to be common knowledge that "website addresses start with www," but more and more sites are dropping the www these days. So what exactly is www?

What www Really Is - Just a Subdomain

www stands for "World Wide Web" and is simply a "subdomain" that precedes the domain name.

• google.com → The domain name (the main part)
• www.google.com → The www subdomain
• mail.google.com → The mail subdomain (Gmail)
• maps.google.com → The maps subdomain (Google Maps)

www was conventionally used as a subdomain pointing to "the web server." It's a remnant from an era when different subdomains were assigned to different services - mail.example.com for the mail server, ftp.example.com for the FTP server, and so on. Knowing how subdomains work is also essential for spotting phishing attempts - learn more in our guide on how to read a URL safely.

Why You Can Access Sites Without www

It's because site administrators configure DNS to point both example.com and www.example.com to the same server. For a full explanation of this process, see our article on how DNS works. Furthermore, most sites set up a redirect (automatic forwarding) from one to the other.

• Google: www.google.com → redirects to google.com (standardized without www)
• Amazon: amazon.co.jp → redirects to www.amazon.co.jp (standardized with www)

Which one a site standardizes on is a matter of policy, but recently more sites are going without www. It makes URLs shorter and cleaner.

The Inventor of www "Has Regrets"

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, has said that the www subdomain convention was "unnecessary." Since the http:// protocol designation already makes it clear that it's a website, www was redundant.

When saying a URL out loud, spending 10 syllables on "double-u double-u double-u dot" is inefficient. There's also the ironic fact that "World Wide Web" is 3 syllables, while its abbreviation "www" is 9 syllables (in English, "double-u" x 3).

Browsers Are Hiding Parts of URLs

Modern browsers increasingly hide the https://www. portion in the address bar. Chrome started hiding https:// in 2018 and also began omitting www. from the display. To understand the full chain of events triggered when you enter a URL, see what happens when you type a URL.

When accessing IP Check-san, www isn't needed either. You can access it directly with just the domain name.

Summary

www is a remnant of the 1990s convention of using a "subdomain for the web server," and it's technically unnecessary. The inventor of the Web himself acknowledged it was "unnecessary," and URLs without www are now becoming the norm. And here's a fun bit of trivia: "World Wide Web" is 3 syllables, but "www" is 9.