How to access site without using www.?

[hermesel]

Hello,

I just setup my site, and this works:

www.hermes.elementfx.com

But this doesn't:

hermes.elementfx.com

I tried searching the forums, and it looks like this has something to do with the WWW folder, but I'm not fully understanding how this works. Can someone fill me in on this, or point me to some documentation on how the WWW directory works here?

Thanks for your time!

 

[Dead-i]

I can see both websites perfectly fine ("Tree Stump Kennels"). What are you seeing on the non-www site? Have you tried clearing your cache?

 

[hermesel]

Wow.

Cleared cache and both are displaying correctly now for me too. That's just my usual habit of trying everything, except the simplest thing.

 

[descalzo]

I tried searching the forums, and it looks like this has something to do with the WWW folder, but I'm not fully understanding how this works.

To clarify some points.

1. Your site's document root, the directory where your website files are stored is public_html .

2. The directory www is an alias (actually a symlink) to public_html . There are not two directories, only one. Put a file in www and it is in public_html . There is only one file, not two. Delete a file from public_html and it is gone from www . There was only one file to start with.

3. Delete the directory www and you only delete the symlink. It does not delete public_html . Your site should still work. But you might have some software that looks for www instead of public_html so it is not a good idea to delete www .

4. The www in the front of web addresses is now more of a historical holdover. When you set up a siite , mygreatwebsite.com , the system will usually add what is called a CNAME record to the nameservers telling the rest of web that "www.mygreatwebsite.com is really mygreatwebsite.com, so go look there"

 

[hermesel]

Great explanation.

I thought this was how the WWW folder should work, as adjustments made to indexing on one folder automatically applied to both, but the fact that I was seeing a "default page" when I tried to enter the URL without a "www." threw me for a loop. This appears to have been a hold over from visiting the site prior to uploading the necessary files over ftp.

Thanks again, this really clarifies the issue.