My solution is tell them “http://subdomain.mydomain.com”.

In the past, it was expected that companies would have different servers (and thus different hostnames) for each of the Internet services they would provide. http://www.example.com for their web sites, http://ftp.example.com for their file transfer services, and mail.example.com for their email services.

As things turned out, many small companies can’t afford to have a separate server for each of their services, so they run many of them on the same box. As a result, the above naming convention doesn’t really make much sense in most cases.

I think it still makes sense to follow the convention of multiple subdomains even if all the services are running on the same box and on the same IP. It’s a preparation for when a company can eventually afford to host their services on their own dedicated servers, on their own dedicated IPs. Instead of creating the need to alert the users to start using mail.example.com instead of http://www.example.com when accessing the POP3 server or http://ftp.example.com instead of http://www.example.com when accessing the FTP server, you pave the way properly once and never have to worry about it again.

Besides, I personally find it odd and unintuitive to access a www subdomain for any purpose other than http://WWW.

A google search item would normally be for a name or a service rather than a URL

Are you kidding??? Yes, I know that’s how it’s intended to be used, but non-technical people type urls into google all the time to find a site. Don’t forget about the little people :)

If you know the order of things “downunder”, that’s like saying the USA should do things the way Canada does, or the English should speak French!!

You got my point backwards, and you’re trying to put the American stereotype on me (that’s a cheap shot BTW). You were talking about how advertisers in NZ play on the Ws and using that as a reason for keeping them. I was just pointing out that maybe that’s just a NZ thing, so it’s not a strong argument for an issue that would affect the whole world.

Oh, and BTW http://www.99designs.com also works.

Yes, it redirects to the non W version, which is what the anti-W people are suggesting to do until it fades from the collective memory.

…and obvious that it is 99 Designs - who’s going to care about what’s in the browser address bar.

Exactly :)

Check your webstats to see how many people googled you by searchig “domain.com” vs “www.domain.com”

A google search item would normally be for a name or a service rather than a URL. A more relevant value would be the “referrer” (for internal links) or other value that returns the actual URL the site visitor enters into their browser address bar. What you use depends on your website statistics package. FYI with our larger sites our web application(s) keep these stats.

But then again I think I remember hearing that an Australian site called 99designs thought it was a good idea to launch without them…

If you know the order of things “downunder”, that’s like saying the USA should do things the way Canada does, or the English should speak French!!

Oh, and BTW http://www.99designs.com also works. And once you get to the site, it looks so beautiful - and obvious that it is 99 Designs - who’s going to care about what’s in the browser address bar.

Gary

Check your webstats to see how many people googled you by searchig “domain.com” vs “www.domain.com”

I’ll also recognize that the Ws might by played on by advertising more heavily on your side of the world, I haven’t noticed that here in the US. But then again I think I remember hearing that an Australian site called 99designs thought it was a good idea to launch without them… :P

I can see some sense in the pattern recognition argument, except that it ignores the more well established “.com” “.net”, etc pattern that is much more consistant.

From my personal experience I don’t think one is more prevalent than the other.

From my experience with non-technical people, they couldn’t care less about stuff like this.

Of course they don’t - it is us technical types who “worry”. My point is that the masses already recognise the “www” pattern ( as evidenced here in NZ that advertising types exploit the “dub dub dub” term all the time ) and to change a well established convention for mainstream websites seems a little pointless and confusing.

Gary