Websites do not load with www

Hi,

There are typically two configurations required to do what you want to do:

1. the www DNS needs to resolve to the same IP as the websites, typically your Droplet IP or another domain that resolves to your Droplet IP
2. your web server configuration (apache or nginx typically) needs to perform a redirect when a site is requested for

From your description of the problem, it sounds like your DNS is setup correctly but the second part, the part that will redirect the www request to the right site, is not.

This past answer has some of the webserver configuration info for Apache and Nginx (right after):

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/how-can-i-redirect-www-mysite-com-to-mysite-com-using-digitalocean-dns?answer=13333

Both of these examples are for a virtual host that listens for the www domain and then redirects it to the non-www version of the site domain. A “301” redirect is a “permanent” redirect (for search engine purposes).

If you’re still stuck and you are using Apache, here is a DigitalOcean tutorial that uses an A record instead of a CNAME - reviewing these steps might help with your issue.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-redirect-www-to-non-www-with-apache-on-ubuntu-14-04

Here’s another tutorial on redirects that includes some nginx info too:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-create-temporary-and-permanent-redirects-with-apache-and-nginx

If you are stuck, please reply with a little more information like which web server are you using (apache or nginx, for example).

Hope this helps and good luck!