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When a URL has a subdomain subdirectory (like https://www.example.com/subdomain), does it still need a dot at the end (https://www.example.com/subdomain.)?

Is a dot needed the end of the domain name (https://www.example.com./subdomain)?

Is just not having a . at all (https://www.example.com/subdomain) correct?

I read another question on this site about the dot at the end, but what about subdirectories?

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Eate
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    That's not a subdomain. That a subdirectory. Big difference. And, no, there should not be a dot unless you feel a need to have one but it would be for different reasons that for domains – John Conde Dec 16 '14 at 20:08

1 Answers1

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You are somewhat confused about the different parts of the URL. Let me break them out for you: 

https://www.example.com/path
  • https is the protocol
  • www is the subdomain
  • example.com is the domain name
  • com is the top level domain
  • /path is the URL path

How can URLs have a dot . at the end, e.g. www.bla.de.? is about the domain name ending in a . (example.com.). That situation can happen, but it isn't common, and isn't something most webmasters ever worry about.

The subdomain (www) is always separated from the domain name by a .. So I guess in a sense, the subdomain can "end" in a dot, but that is really just more separation from the domain name. On an internal network where you have your computers DNS "search domain" set as "example.com", you could access http://www.example.com/ with just http://www/. The "example.com" part would be assumed. The trailing dot on www.example.com. tells the DNS system not to use the search domain to be doubly sure that it doesn't assume www.example.com.example.com. Putting in http://www./ wouldn't be able to acces your site because it tells the DNS system not to use the search domain and treat www as a top level domain (which would then not be found).

You are free to define the URL path for your website any way that you want as long as you can get your web server to support it. All of the following URL paths would be valid and each would be different:

  • /path
  • /path.
  • /path/
  • /path.html

The trailing dot has no special meaning there. Most web servers would just treat it as part of the file name.

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Stephen Ostermiller
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