Did you know that using the WWW. before the domain name is not mandatory, and that beyond its use, the experts contradict each other over whether its use is advisable or not? In this installment the ZARZA Engineers clear up the doubts, and point out reasons why you should not use it, or continue using it.
What is WWW.?
The initials WWW refer to the Internet in general, meaning World Wide Web (WWW), however this article is not about this concept, but rather about the use of WWW. before your domain name on the Internet.
Before continuing, for teaching purposes we need to divide a typical web address into its 4 fundamental parts, taking Google as an example:
http://www.google.com
The “http://” is the protocol, the “www.” is a subdomain of the domain “google.com”, with the “.com” being its extension.
In this case the WWW. is a subdomain, belonging to the address called the domain, and has the same rank as others such as, for example, mail.google.com, and so on. With this we can understand that the WWW. is an optional and not mandatory part of the domain name, being able (if the configuration on the server is correct) to enter by just typing http://google.com.
In these cases the WWW. is obsolete, and is not necessary as has been thought, as a myth, for a long time by many users.
When should the WWW. be used?
At ZARZA we have been making the Internet since 2003, when practically everyone understood and typed the www., and defined their internal and external links that way; so we have seen the evolution of the process.
The www. adds 4 characters to the address that must be typed in the browser, and it is automatically added when, for example, we type “google” in the navigation bar and press CTRL+ENTER, this following the standard of many years, and for some, supporting its use.
It is for the above that if your project started years ago, and has inbound links positioned in search engines, and these include the www., you should probably keep using it. This so as not to affect your domain’s reputation, and so on.
However, this is frequently debated by SEO experts, and requires a real analysis of benefits and trade-offs, which must be studied case by case, depending on your current site.
No more WWW. for new projects
Perhaps you will have noticed that at zarza.com we do not use the www., this because we consider it a “deal breaker” for our domain to go from 9 characters to more than 10 due to the use of the www., which basically reduces readability for the search engines whether or not the www. is included.
On another occasion we talked about the importance of choosing a short domain, and by not using the www., we are achieving an ideal combination, to allow us to create pages after the domain extension, with content related to our objective.
Let’s take a look at the URL of this particular post:
https://zarza.com/www-esta-en-desuso-o-no/
As you can observe, the ZARZA domain is small, and if we had the www. before it, the article’s slug would be further to the right of the left margin, which experts point out reduces its importance both for the human eye and for the search engine algorithms, not to mention that in this particular case we would find the www twice, once as a subdomain and once in the slug (what comes after the .com/).
Will I lose visits if I stop using the WWW.?
It is an interesting topic to analyze. If you already have posts and addresses positioned with the WWW., we do not recommend changing your address, unless an expert recommends it, and it is more productive for your particular case. However, if it is a new project, you should not lose visits at all.
Nevertheless, we know that there will always be people who type www. and your organization’s domain, and that is why we recommend always making an SEO-friendly redirect, so that if, for example, someone enters by typing the www., they are redirected to the version without this subdomain, automatically and transparently.
Following the advice above, you can be part of the evolution of the Internet, which gives greater value to what generates and benefits the inflow of organic traffic, instead of the standards that are gradually falling into disuse.
