What do you call the www. part of a website name?

[Rufio]

I'm studying for school and trying to figure out what you call part of a website name. It's the part that normally has the www. in it. For example answers.groovypost.com - what is the answers. part called?

[Simon H]

The answers. part is a subdomain of groovypost.com

You may also see something like answers.groovypost.com/answers

the /answers part points to a directory withing the groovpost.com domain

[Steve Krause]

The answers. part is a subdomain of groovypost.com

You may also see something like answers.groovypost.com/answers

the /answers part points to a directory withing the groovpost.com domain

 

Correct. Subdomains are used to separate different parts of a website for various purposes. Because a subdomain also is technically a different domain from the rot domain (answers.groovypost.com vs. groovypost.com), it will have a seperate DNS name and therefore a different IP address if desired.

This makes it very nice if you want to spread your website over multiple websites or even hosts/data centers for that matter.