How to make a website

I have to look at an awful lot of websites and I’m surprised by one problem that seems to be true for a great number of sites. Domain names need to work in two formats: www.domainname.thingy and domainname.thingy. There are too many sites that don’t seem to work without the www part.

This surprises me because I kind of assume that domain names will get set up correctly when you use one by the guys who look after your domain name.

So when you buy and start using a name make sure it works both with and without the www. Id it doesn’t work without the www then find someone who can make sure it does or alternatively move your name to somewhere that does things properly.

You would be amazed at how many people will search for your site without using the www and of course if your name doesn’t work right then they will often assume that your site is dead and go somewhere else.

This boils down to things like A records and dns but you probably don’t want to be bothering about this – just make sure they both work and if they don’t get on to the person who administers your domain.

If you do want to know what to do then first check that you have A records for both the domain name without www and with www – this can be checked through a domain control panel.