Redirect traffic to the apex or www. subdomain
Although the "www" prefix is no longer a necessary part of any URL, it still lingers around the internet, and probably always will. So why is that? And what could be the benefits of redirecting your apex domain, also called your root domain or naked domain, to your www. subdomain?
Read on to find out more about why you should redirect traffic from a root domain to a www. subdomain, or the other way around. For background on redirect types, see our complete guide to URL redirects.
Want to know how to implement this type of redirect using redirect.pizza? Read our handy guide:
how to redirect traffic to the "www." subdomain
What's the difference between the root domain and the www. subdomain?
Before we get into the benefits of redirecting your root domain to your www. subdomain, let's cover the basics.
A root domain, also known as the apex domain or naked domain, is the main part of your URL. For example, redirect.pizza is our root domain. Any URL containing a subdomain, such as www.redirect.pizza or https://status.redirect.pizza are not considered domain apexes.
Adding the "www." prefix to this root domain will bring you to the www. subdomain. "www" stands for "World Wide Web," a convention from the early days of the internet when URLs needed to distinguish web services from other protocols like FTP. The prefix stuck, even though it's technically no longer necessary.
Make sure you communicate one version of your website
Redirecting your root domain to your www. subdomain (or the other way around) is a smart thing to do as part of your communication strategy. By setting up a redirect, you ensure that only one version of your website URL is communicated to the visitors. Whether they type in www.redirect.pizza or just redirect.pizza. This consistency is good for user experience and brand building.
The benefits of redirecting traffic from a root domain to a www. subdomain
These days, the "www" is no longer a necessary prefix. But there can be some situations in which you could benefit from using a www. subdomain. Especially when you redirect your root domain to this www. subdomain.
Tradition and trust
Even though most users are unfamiliar with the history of the "www." prefix, it's something we're all used to seeing. For decades, every URL on the web started with these same three letters. So because of this familiarity, the sight of the "www" could create a feeling of trust with website users. This also means that users could be less trusting of websites without the "www." prefix. When you redirect your root domain to your www. subdomain, everyone will automatically see the most trusted version of your URL.
Work around the limitations of your DNS provider
By redirecting your root domain to your www. subdomain, you can work around certain limitations of DNS specifications. The limitations have to do with types of DNS records that help route traffic correctly. The CNAME (Canonical Name) record and A (Address) record are two of such types that are important when redirecting non-www to www. For a full comparison, see our guide on DNS-level vs server-side redirects.
A CNAME record is used to redirect one domain alias to another. So, for instance, when you have a website with the domain www.example.com, you can use a CNAME record to ensure that example.org is redirected to it. An A record, on the other hand, is used to map to the domain's corresponding IP address. This ensures that when someone types in your domain, it redirects them to the server where your website is hosted.
Because of the limitations in the DNS specifications, the use of a CNAME record for the root domain is not supported. To work around this problem, an A record can be set at the root domain. This enables you to redirect from non-www to www. By doing so, both variants can function properly.
But here you'll come across another problem. Many host providers require a CNAME record to redirect to a subdomain. So this means that your root domain, which is using an A record, can't be hosted directly there.
Fortunately, this problem can be solved by using a redirect service such as redirect.pizza. With redirect.pizza, your root domain can be hosted by us on our A record, while your www. subdomain can still be hosted by your website provider with a CNAME record. This setup ensures your website visitor will always have uninterrupted access, regardless of the version of the domain they use.
How redirect.pizza can help
Using a dedicated domain redirect tool like redirect.pizza, you can send all traffic to one version of your website. You can set up these redirects in about 3 minutes.
Set up once and forget about it
redirect.pizza comes with an easy-to-use interface. Setting up a redirect is done in minutes. Add it once, and let us take care of the rest. Even SSL certificates are automatically renewed, so you never have to worry about HTTPS redirects breaking due to expired certs.
The interface also keeps an overview of all incoming hits, so in just one glance you can see how all your redirects are doing.
Path forwarding & matching
Our tool enables path forwarding, so all your existing paths from the root domain will be kept and used in the www. subdomain. This enables you to redirect complete paths from the root domain to your www. subdomain.
High-performance redirect service
With redirect.pizza your redirects are always managed efficiently. All traffic lands on the right destination. We provide the fastest redirects possible through our high-performance edge network, minimizing latency for visitors worldwide.
Working with redirect.pizza also means you won't have to host anything on your own hosting environment. No extra server management overhead.
Built-in analytics
redirect.pizza comes with a built-in analytic tool. You'll gain insight into hits per period, traffic sources, traffic destinations, traffic type, top 10 countries of your visitors, top 10 referrers, 50 best-performing URLs, and more. We'll also send you a regular summary email with the most important insights about your redirects.
