Add or remove www from a domain

 

Overview

This article explains how to force or remove the 'www' subdomain from your website URL using an .htaccess file.

Background

By default, your fully hosted website can be visited with or without the 'www' subdomain in front of it, For example:

  • example.com
  • www.example.com

Some people prefer to remove the 'www' subdomain in front of their website URL, while others prefer that it remains there. This article explains how to force one option or the other.

Adding or removing 'www' using an .htaccess file

You can add or remove 'www' using an .htaccess file. This involves creating and editing this file on your web server. See the following articles for information on creating or editing this file:

Make sure this file is located in the website directory.

Remove 'www'

Add the following lines to automatically remove the 'www' from the beginning of your domain.

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com 
RewriteRule (.*) https://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Force 'www'

Add the following lines to force the 'www' at the beginning of your domain.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com 
RewriteRule (.*) https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Adding or removing 'www' in WordPress

WordPress sites can modify how the website URL appears within the WordPress dashboard. See this article for more information on how to modify a WordPress site URL.

When adding or removing 'www' breaks WordPress

WordPress is unique in that it requires the URL to either force or remove 'www' from the domain name. If the database is forcing one option, but the .htaccess file is forcing another, you'll see a redirect loop error on your website.

To fix this error:

See also

Did this article answer your questions?

Article last updated PST.

Still not finding what you're looking for?