Difference between using www. and not www.

[Nibinaear]

I was just wondering what the difference between using www. on a web address and not using it was. Sometimes urls work if you ommit it, sometimes they don't.

Sorry if this is in the wrong place.

[PeejAvery]

When someone purchases a domain name, they only purchase the root example.com. However, back when the world wide web started, they used www to prefix everything. In actuality, www is a subdomain.

The reason why most sites work with or without it, is because of their DNS settings. So long as both example.com and www.example.com have the same DNS entry, they will work identically.

[Nibinaear]

Cheers

Nibinaear