Should your website address start with "www"? When clients are creating a new website, they often ask me if the site should include "www" in the address. I always say no, unless your IT department has a technical reason to. For most businesses, there's no reason to bother with the "www." Let's take a closer look at why not, and the rare cases in which you probably should use "www."
When someone asks for your business street address, do you include "USA"? If your US business is local, regional, or even national, you probably don't. Why? It's not necessary. If you operate within the US, your fellow Americans will assume the address is within the US.
For the vast majority of businesses, there's no reason to include "www" in your website address. Save the space in your marketing materials. Save the time in telling people your address ("go to double-u, double-u, double-u …"). Why overcomplicate things?
Now, some people type "www" in front of every web address, and they'll likely do that until the day they die. So, for the foreseeable future, you should make sure that if someone goes to www.yoursite.com, they are redirected (forwarded) to yoursite.com (without the "www").
"But what will Google think?" is another question clients ask, when we're talking about their website address. Good news: Google doesn't care if your site uses "www" or not. Your Google ranking won't rise or fall as a result. Your SEO will not be affected. However, you should be consistent in whether you use "www" or not, and set up Google Search Console and Google Analytics with the right version.
Using "www" in your website address isn't wrong, it just isn't necessary. So, if your site uses "www" now, it's not critical that you rush to remove it. That can wait until the next iteration of your website.
Think back to your business street address. You probably don't include "USA" in your business address if your US business operates at the national level or smaller. But, if your US business operates internationally, then you likely do include "USA" when you give your business street address. Your business is probably larger and more complex than a local business, so you treat your address differently. In the same way, there are some rare technical reasons that you might want to include "www" in your website address.
If you will have a large website being served from multiple servers, it may be best to use "www" for your website.
If you will have multiple websites on the same domain, such as member.yoursite.com, demo.yoursite.com, and portal.yoursite.com, it may be best to use "www" for your main website.
The reason it may be best to use "www" in these cases is that it makes it easier to handle the technical aspects of SSL/TLS and cookies.
But if your business doesn't have these website complexities, then take advantage of the simplicity of leaving "www" out of your web address!
Whether to include "www" in your website address is just one of a multitude of questions you'll face as you create your website. Do you want to google for answers every time you encounter a question? Save yourself the hassle and headache, and simply work with a web agency that can guide you through the entire process.
Another hick hillbilly with the mentality of an amoeba. Not everyone lives in the USA, moron.
In fact, the USA accounts for a staggeringly small 4.25% of the World's population. In other words: Practically nothing.
Of that tiny percentage of insular, arrogant, loud-mouthed, and war-mongering plagiarists, over 50% have a problem with literacy. So I'm not exactly sure who your readership could be!
For your education: The internet was created by the Englishman,Tim Berners-Lee, in 1989. It was named the WORLD WIDE Web (www). Notice the emphasis on World Wide.
That's right – the other 95.75% of the world's population also use it.
The purpose of the post is to inform website owners that they generally don't need to include
wwwin their web addresses. American mailing addresses are mentioned simply as an analogy; the analogy would work with mailing addresses in any country. We chose American addresses because over 90% of our clients are in the US.Nice try, Chad; but why use an analogy at all? You are a businessman, are you not? Why ever would you want to reduce your World market so drastically? Firstly, your business can be conducted entirely on-line. Secondly, you are lucky enough to have inherited English from your British ancestors, hence you have no lack of potential clients!
Notwithstanding, perhaps you are indeed right to aim this at Americans. Not the brightest tools in the World's tool-box.
Kindest regards,
The larger '10%'.
Don't take offence - just joshing. 😉