www or no?

[r8shell]

I've noticed something odd, and am somewhat curious. (hopefully, I can explain it clearly)

When I log onto BladeForums, I use the url:
https://www.bladeforums.com/

Sometimes, a member will post a link to a page here that doesn't have the www, starting with
https://bladeforums.com/

Clicking on their link will take me to the page, but I'm not logged on. I can type the "www" in, and the link works normally, or I can log on again, and I'll continue to be logged on to both the www and the non-www versions of pages.

Is there some kind of redundancy, with some members using one or the other version of the site? At the risk of sounding stupid...is Bladeforums using twice as much bandwidth to run than it needs to?

 

[KingMC]

I've noticed something odd, and am somewhat curious. (hopefully, I can explain it clearly)

When I log onto BladeForums, I use the url:
https://www.bladeforums.com/

Sometimes, a member will post a link to a page here that doesn't have the www, starting with
https://bladeforums.com/

Clicking on their link will take me to the page, but I'm not logged on. I can type the "www" in, and the link works normally, or I can log on again, and I'll continue to be logged on to both the www and the non-www versions of pages.

Is there some kind of redundancy, with some members using one or the other version of the site? At the risk of sounding stupid...is Bladeforums using twice as much bandwidth to run than it needs to?

I believe both types of URLs access the same host servers but store cookies/sessions separately, so if you were logged in on the www. version of the site that session wouldn't transfer over to the non-www. version of the site. Most websites auto-redirect to whichever version of the URL is the preferred one, but I don't think Bladeforums has that auto-redirect in place.

 

[WValtakis]

Is there some kind of redundancy, with some members using one or the other version of the site? At the risk of sounding stupid...is Bladeforums using twice as much bandwidth to run than it needs to?

That's an excellent question and theory Rach...it would explain a LOT of the problems.

 

[r8shell]

I believe both types of URLs access the same host servers but store cookies/sessions separately, so if you were logged in on the www. version of the site that session wouldn't transfer over to the non-www. version of the site. Most websites auto-redirect to whichever version of the URL is the preferred one, but I don't think Bladeforums has that auto-redirect in place.

Is that like two different ways of writing an address that takes you to the exact same place, as opposed to having twice as many pages stored on the server?

I was hoping to be the hero that stumbles upon the solution to the daily lag.