Hi all,

I think this is a basic question. I was wondering why some site can be
accessed via http://some-site.com but not www.some-site.com? what does
it tell me under the hood(that it
doesn't have a domain name?).

thanks.

s o

In article <1145288647.472016.275650@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups .com>,
<jou128@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I think this is a basic question. I was wondering why some site can be
>accessed via http://some-site.com but not www.some-site.com?

Because some-site.com has a DNS A record and www.some-site.com
doesn't.

>what does it tell me under the hood(that it doesn't have a domain
>name?).

Nothing.

--
-- Rod --
rodd(at)polylogics(dot)com

<jou128@yahoo.com> wrote:

: why some site can be
: accessed via http://some-site.com but not www.some-site.com?

My understanding is that once you own a domain MAINDOMAIN.com, it is up
to you to define any subdomains like SUBDOMAIN.MAINDOMAIN.com, if you
wish to. There is no requirement to do so.

So, let's say Harvard has registered harvard.edu . Now it is up to
them, if they want, to define subdomains like admissions.harvard.edu,
music.harvard.edu, history.harvard.edu, etc., including
www.harvard.edu.

By tradition, most domain owners have defined a "www" subdomain, but
there is no requirement and some don't do it.

Also by tradition, domain.com and www.domain.com usually lead to the
same page, but they need not.

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 08:38:53 GMT, Ajanta <ajanta@null.void> wrote:
: <jou128@yahoo.com> wrote:
:
: : why some site can be
: : accessed via http://some-site.com but not www.some-site.com?
:
: My understanding is that once you own a domain MAINDOMAIN.com, it is up
: to you to define any subdomains like SUBDOMAIN.MAINDOMAIN.com, if you
: wish to. There is no requirement to do so.
:
: So, let's say Harvard has registered harvard.edu . Now it is up to
: them, if they want, to define subdomains like admissions.harvard.edu,
: music.harvard.edu, history.harvard.edu, etc., including
: www.harvard.edu.
:
: By tradition, most domain owners have defined a "www" subdomain, but
: there is no requirement and some don't do it.
:
: Also by tradition, domain.com and www.domain.com usually lead to the
: same page, but they need not.

Conceptually at least, what appears in a URL is a host name, not a domain
name. So "www.somesite.com" was traditionally the name of Somesite's Web
server, not necessarily (or even usually) a subdomain name. The idea, which
some sites follow and some don't, of giving the Web server a name synonymous
with the domain (or subdomain) name came along later. Not all name servers
make that trivially easy to do, BTW. I've found it to be cumbersome in even
the most recent versions of the Microsoft name server (which is one reason I
still run an old version of BIND on our external name server).