Technical Argument to Prefer non-www to www?

[Allie_Williams]

I've been recommending using non-www vs. www as a preferable set up if a client is starting a site from scratch, and there aren't any pre-existing links to consider.

I'm wondering if this recommendation still holds?

I’ve been looking on the interwebs and I’m seeing far fewer articles arguing for the non-www version. In the two courts, I’m seeing highlighted:

Pro www: (ex: www.domain.com)

• Works better with CDN networks, where a domain needs to be specified (though that argument is 3 years old)
• Ability to restrict cookies to one hostname (www) or subdomain (info. blog. promo.) if using multiple subdomains
• IT people generally prefer it

Pro non-www (ex: domain.com)

• If you ever want to support or add https://, you don’t have to support 2 sets of urls/domains
• Mindset: fewer and fewer people think in terms of typing in www before a site url, the future is heading towards dropping that anyway. Though that is a bit of a cosmetic argument….

Is there a trend going back to www? Is there a technical argument to recommend non-www over www?

Thanks!

[cbielich]

I do not believe there really is a technical argument for this anymore because of the advancements we have now with HTML/Apache and so on. I have been developing for about 15 years and at this point it really doesn't matter. Just choose one and go with it.

Works better with CDN networks, where a domain needs to be specified (though that argument is 3 years old)

Not sure what you are meaning by "specifying a domain"?. Either way a domain has to be specified whether its www.example.com or example.com. Now the standard to specify a CDN any pretty much everything else is in this format. "//www.example.com" or "//example.com". The "//" now tells the browser to just go to that server and the server will do the rest and tell the client where they should go.

For instance say you setup your .htaccess file to redirect (301) everyone to https and www. The client only needs to worry about "//"

Ability to restrict cookies to one hostname (www) or subdomain (info. blog. promo.) if using multiple subdomains

Cookies should always be set for both just in case. You cant control how someone will type in your domain, but you can control the redirects to www.

**IT people generally prefer it **

Not true

If you ever want to support or add https://, you don’t have to support 2 sets of urls/domains

Again with just using "//" you don't have to worry about this anymore

Mindset: fewer and fewer people think in terms of typing in www before a site url, the future is heading towards dropping that anyway. Though that is a bit of a cosmetic argument….

As long as you setup your redirect, www or none-www does not matter, even if you had your domain for years before you implemented the change.

Here is the current trend

With the amount of mobile devices and how "on the go" we are the less we can type to get our answer, the better. So yes the most preferred is example.com. In fact people now will just type in the brand name/domain and let Google direct them.

All in all everyone should have a redirect to either www or none-www. All that matters to you is how do you want users to see your domain...www or none-www. Send them to whatever method you prefer. Since Google can determine the difference and you setup your 301 properly your Golden.

[Allie_Williams]

Thanks Cesar, I appreciate your detailed response.

Pick one, set up our redirects properly and we're good to go!

Thanks much!