www and www2

[vaibhav24in]

what is the diffrence between www and www2?

[GhettoT]

Usually its just a different server. If you posted a URL that would be helpful.

[codeexploiter]

Mostly i think he is refering to a sub-domain (subsite).

[jscheuer1]

what is the diffrence between www and www2?

Al Gore invented one and the other beat him in the general election after some wrangling in the courts.

(A little states-side humor)

[tech_support]

Web 2.0?

[codeexploiter]

Web 2.0?

I don't think it represent Web 2.0.

I believe that it is just a sub-domain nothing else.

Please correct me if I am wrong

[tech_support]

I think it is because every website I see with 'www2' is a Web 2.0 site.

[vaibhav24in]

I am talking about the blogger account. When i access there with my goggle account it takes me to www2.blogger.com/login.g I couldn't understand they have to use www2 i see metacafe uses even www17

[djr33]

the basic structure for a URL is this:

prefix://subdomain.domain.ext/directory/dir...../file.ext

Depending on what is used, various parts can be ommitted.

I'll explain both parts in simple terms as I can't claim to be an expert on the tech stuff.


prefix:
*http: HyperText Transfer Protocol... this lets you view stuff with your browser
*https: secure site... this makes sure the data you send is (more) protected between you and the site itself, like for credit cards
*ftp: File Transfer Protocol... this is similar with the same system, but let's you view as files and folders, like on your computer. It lets you manage your website.
*mms: some weird media file thing
*and a few other specific ones that are used for media and such to try and prevent saving of files so they only work with certain plugins.
*mailto: this is different. It's only used for a link to make an email (like mailto:some@one.com) and isn't really the same kinda thing. Figured I'd mention it though.
*like mailto, there are a couple other kinds of things, like newsgroups, etc. Not sure exactly how they work.


domain:
this is pretty simple. It's the ____.com, etc.
It has a limit of, I think, 64 characters or something, and each character is either a number, letter or hyphen (-).

extension:
.com, .net, .org, .tv, .info, .co.uk, etc.
Like .co.uk, there can be multiple dots/parts to this.
Basically, it is either something like .com (commercial) or .net (network?), or .org (generally for nonprofit organizations, though I don't think required), OR it's a country-based extension, like .co.uk or .us, .tk, .nl, .de, etc.
The various owners of these control who can use them. For example, usually the countries only allow people of those countries to use them. I don't know too much more.

subdomain:
this is what you were asking in the first place.
You can have various subdomains.
Sometimes, they fake a folder, like a directory (see below).
So...
files.yoursite.com might actually just be the same as yoursite.com/files
Or, they are a different server, etc.
the subdomain can affect privelages.
For example, some hosts allow a subdomain.
So... you could have:
yourname.hostname.com as your site.
Cookies (stored text files) also have restrictions based on this.
Despite what may be thought, www.x.com and x.com are different, in that www. changes the first version. It makes it have a subdomain, whereas the second is for the "whole" site.

As for www2 specifically, it may be a new server (second www server), or just a section of the site, like a folder.
It's a basic seperation to allow organization, or a different server, it seems.

It can also change how it works. www is the default for "world wide web", so the domain without a subdomain automatically loads the "www" content. There is also other content possible, such as www2. I'm not quite sure on more details.

I would guess that the case with www17 and such you are describing is different servers, to route to the least busy server and reduce load. Using multiple servers allows for there to be less traffic on each and everyone to have faster responses from and connections to the server.



Directories:
Pretty simple. These are the exact same as folders.
You can have one within another, etc.
Each can have files in it.
The "root" is the domain itself, a main folder.

"file.ext":
Any file, accessed at the very end.
If none is supplied, index.php/.htm/.html/.asp, etc is looked for, then default.*, and home.*, etc.
The file can be anything, like a picture or html page or movie.
filename.extention
filename is a title... simple.
extension NOTES the file type, but does not actually determine it. The contents of the file itself determine WHAT it is. The extension just is a hint as to how to deal with it. We can guess that .jpg is a picture and .htm a webpage, but this is not always the case, actually. you *could* have a picture named .htm... it would just confuse some people and some applications.
You don't always need an extension either.
However, generally, this is too detailed for just URLs, but it's worth knowing.

[tech_support]

Again with the long posts :D

[kentlim04]

www2 is just a subdomain.
Please take a look on the URL i have created for this example.
www.my-advertisement.com (http://www.my-advertisement.com) and www2.my-advertisement.com (http://www2.my-advertisement.com)
The above 2 URL is pointing to the same URL.
:)

[Twey]

There was once a convention that all servers would be named with appropriate subdomains. Thus, for the site example.com, one might have:An FTP server on ftp.example.com A webserver on www.example.com A CVS server on cvs.example.com An SMTP server on smtp.example.com... and so on. Now, however, with the popularity of the Web on the rise, the tendency is to have the webserver on the main domain example.com, or to have example.com redirect to www.example.com.
The use of other domains, www2, www3, &c., simply means that there is more than one web server. This is usually done for load-balancing purposes, although there are far neater solutions provided by the DNS layer.

[Butterfly]

Well, actually, www2 is a subdomain containing the exact same data as www, but hosted on another server. Let's take a look at Meebo's page. Everytime you connect, the server checks its load and redirects you to another of his subdomains hosted on another servers with a smaller load (fewer visitors/users online), such as www1, www2, www3 and so on.

[Twey]

Well, actually, www2 is a subdomain containing the exact same data as www, but hosted on another server.By convention, not rule.
The use of other domains, www2, www3, &c., simply means that there is more than one web server. This is usually done for load-balancing purposes, although there are far neater solutions provided by the DNS layer.A separate server that exists to balance the load is indeed a mirror.

[jscheuer1]

Wasn't one to do with the Kaiser and the other with Hitler?