Why do some websites start with WWW2?

WWW is a series of letters that we often see in front of a domain name, even if it is not sure why it is located there. However, sometimes, you may notice some numbers 'sneaking' at the end of this string, such as WWW1, WWW2, maybe even WWW3. Did you accidentally get into a malicious version of the Internet or become a victim of some phishing scam?

Although you must always be wary of strange changes to site names, in this case, you don't need to worry. The number added after the WWW series probably just means that the site you browse is using an old steam load balancing technique. You are still on that page, but your traffic is being transferred to a specific server because other server users are busy.

What is WWW?

Why do some websites start with WWW2? Picture 1

WWW is a server name or element that identifies a device on the network. WWW used to be a way to determine that you want to go to the server, holding a page of the website, as opposed to the email server or another part of the site. The WWW in 'www.tenmien.com' will take you to the site, while ftp.tenmien.com will take you to the FTP server and mail.tenmien.com that can take you to the mail server.

We don't really need to define this anymore, because websites are the most popular thing on the Internet and most servers will automatically transfer you there without you specifying that you want to access the server. web. You will arrive at the same site, regardless of whether you specify WWW or not.

Why do some websites start with WWW [numbers]?

Why do some websites start with WWW2? Picture 2

Although it is an unnecessary naming convention, some websites, especially large and old sites, use the WWW format [numbers] as a way to place subdomains (separate parts of the same a page, but not necessarily on separate servers) or as a hostname for different physical servers. In the latter case, this is probably a load balancing technique. Each server can handle a lot of users, so when you access a site by entering an address with or without WWW, your request can reach a load balancer, which is responsible for checking Check the status of each server and decide to route traffic to it (such as subdomain WWW3).

Why do some websites start with WWW2? Picture 3

It also means that the main server of the site is having trouble and you are being redirected to a backup of that website, or there is an ongoing test or update on the page, etc. anyway, basically, you still have access to the same page. Even if you try to go back to www3.tenmien.com later, the load balancer can take you back to the main website www.tenmien.com .

So don't worry about sites starting with WWW2?

It's hard to say for sure if you only look at the WWW prefix, but as long as the domain name is the same, you don't need to worry about alternate host names or subdomains. You may not see many websites using WWW [numbers] anymore, because there are now more sophisticated load balancing techniques available. Adding a number behind the WWW has nothing to do with security and if a site is working well with this method, you can understand the cause of this change in the URL. WWW [numbers] often appear on bank websites, using different subdomains for security and may have named them under WWW conventions.