Hello, I purchased a domain through cloudfare but for some reason when I try to share the domain with people they can't access it be clicking a hyper link"www.example.com" but can type "example.com" and hit enter and access the domain. When they click "www.example.com" it takes them to a safari page that says the server cannot be found. Please advise, thank you.
Mac mini, macOS 13.5
www.example.com and example.com are two separate DNS names, for two separate servers. If you want the two names to resolve to the same host, you’ll need to have DNS translations for both names, and the www host will need to be redirected to not-www host.
Most registrars will have a subdomain creation facility somewhere in their DNS configuration portal.
Once you have the www subdomain created, you can then set up the desired forwarding.
Here is how to redirect a www.example.com virtual host on port 80 HTTP to the preferred example.com:80 host, assuming the Apache web server.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.example.com
Redirect permanent / http://example.com/
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName example.com
# real server configuration
</VirtualHost>
If you don’t want to bother with that, you can also configure www.example.com and example.com to resolve to the same server, though you will still need to set up a virtual host for both names there, if you are using something like a web server with virtual hosting capabilities; with Apache, nginx, or otherwise.
www.example.com and example.com are two separate DNS names, for two separate servers. If you want the two names to resolve to the same host, you’ll need to have DNS translations for both names, and the www host will need to be redirected to not-www host.
Most registrars will have a subdomain creation facility somewhere in their DNS configuration portal.
Once you have the www subdomain created, you can then set up the desired forwarding.
Here is how to redirect a www.example.com virtual host on port 80 HTTP to the preferred example.com:80 host, assuming the Apache web server.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.example.com
Redirect permanent / http://example.com/
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName example.com
# real server configuration
</VirtualHost>
If you don’t want to bother with that, you can also configure www.example.com and example.com to resolve to the same server, though you will still need to set up a virtual host for both names there, if you are using something like a web server with virtual hosting capabilities; with Apache, nginx, or otherwise.
Strictly speaking these are two different host addresses. For many domains, one points to the other automatically, in order to allow shortened addresses, but it has to be configured that way. The trick isn’t universal by itself. If that configuration hasn’t been done, then the two addresses will get different responses in browsers.
Talk to you hosting provider about synchronizing these two URLs.
You’ll best want to discuss this web server setup with CloudFlare support then, as this has ~nothing to do with macOS and only incidentally with DNS and subdomains.
thank you, I should haven mentioned that:
Domain doesn't work with "www.example.com" but does work "example.com"
