Earlier today I wrote about an SSL error due to a cNAME record problem that somebody may come across trying to access a website by typing a domain name without www. included with the domain name. Well, here is an example of site without an SSL certificate and having the cNAME record problem. Technically, if the owner of the site has things set up correctly, you should be able to access a website by typing a domain name with or without www. included with the domain name.

Sadly, many companies from Big to Small miss this simple but yet costly mistake.

Example: A visitor is trying to access a website and types into there address bar in there web browser: domainname.com and gets a error type page (depends on your browser) something like this when the page loads:

YKK.com Server Error

Although there really may be a website on that domain name, if the site owner doesn’t redirect the domain name without www. to the www. domain, you will get something similar to the above image. This often leads to people thinking the site is "down" or having some kind of problem. This leads to missed traffic, sales and also paints a not so pretty picture. In the end, you will not be able to access the site.

Now if you retype the domain name with www. you may get different results and the site will likely load with what you intended to see.

In the example above, I tried to visit the domain name YKK.com and that is how I typed it in my web browser. If you were to visit www.YKK.com the site works perfectly fine!

I highly suggest you double check to make sure your website (all if you have more than one) resolve if somebody were to type your domain name without www. into there browser. I personally NEVER type www. when I am directly trying to access a specific domain name. Secondly, if I get a server error like pictured above, I do not simply add www. to the domain and try it again.

You only get one first impression and having a server load error is not one you want to present to a customer!

There is NO reason why your domain name shouldn’t resolve either way a user may type your domain name! Be sure to cover your bases, because you really could be losing up to HALF of your intended visitors who use direct navigation IMO. You can set up a redirect via your web hosting company via cPanel and redirect your domain name without www. to your domain with www so both resolve or vice versa www. resolves to yourdomain.com . I personally use Hostgator and they have a section under "Domains" and an icon for "Simple DNS Zone Editor" .The www. is actually considered a sub domain. The cNAME change can be done at some domain name registrars as well but likely at your web hosting company.

If you have a dedicated server, I suggest setting up a wild card for sub domains, *.domainname.com as that will cover any typos like ww.domainname.com or wwww.domainname.com or any sub domains you may use. If you have shared hosting, you can simply set up the couple of typos I suggested (ww.) and (wwww.). It will also cover any traffic coming from a sub domain you may not be aware of, if somebody owned the domain name before you. I have seen many times that the main traffic for a domain is a sub domain.. not covering that could result in you missing a lot of traffic that was intended for your site.

If you are wondering what YKK.com is.. it is likely one of the brands you have the most of at your home. They are a zipper company. You may recall seeing YKK on your zipper on your jeans or a jacket… that is actually a brand name zipper.