Why do some websites start with "www2" instead of just "www"?

Gnomon

The bit at the start of a web address can be anything at all; it doesn't have to be www. In my e-mail provider, for example, it is gofree. Most websites use www because it is easy to remember (although not to say). Some websites have a www server and a www2 server for different types of site. Jun 20 06, 6:12 AM

zbeckabee

There is no technical reason for a website's name to start with "www"; this is a common convention, just as many organizations once had their main public gopher site at gopher.wherever.edu and still have their public ftp servers at ftp.name.gov for example. Indeed, the first Web server was at info.cern.ch. Some organizations extend this convention by using the prefixes "www2", "www3", "www4", etc., for multiple related websites. Some browsers will automatically try adding "www." to the beginning, and possibly ".com" to the end, of typed URIs if a web page isn't found without them. With the Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers, pressing the Control and Enter keys simultaneously will prefix 'www' and suffix '.com' to whatever has been typed into the address box. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Www2 Jun 20 06, 7:50 AM