They are a little different in DNS. funnyboneusa.com has 4 IP addresses, while www.funnyboneusa.com resolves to only one of those addresses. It's possible that if you request funnyboneusa.com, but get a physically different server running at one of the other 3 IPs, that its web site is out of sync with the www host. There are other possibilities involving virtual hosts, multiple interfaces on one host, etc. Complain to the management.
Short answer: somebody's IIS configuration is messed up.
I just hit funnyboneusa.com from three different locations and got three different sites. It resolves to four different IP addresses: 66.128.123.139-142. Each of these, if you go to it directly, produces a different page. The server ought to be looking at the Host: header the browser sends and picking the appropriate virtual host based on that, but obviously it isn't.
I'm betting Smo's experience of getting the same site is either chance (1/4) or safari tacking on a www. before trying to retrieve the page.
And for me. WinXP SP2 + Firefox 1.5RC3.
If I had to make a guess: it may be that you have some sort of spyware on your system redirecting certain url requests. In theory, 'www' is simply a subdomain of a given domain, but it's possible that if you have intercepting spyware, it may be set to intercept 'www.funnyboneusa.com' and redirect it to a competitor but not 'know' to do the same with just 'funnyboneusa.com', or vice versa.
This is just a suggestion, though. Given that I get the same site with both addresses, I can't tell if what you're seeing at your end fits the sort of activity that type of spyware might cause.
Scratch my previous comment, seems like others have a better understanding of what's going on.
I think the simple answer is that they're two different addresses - the "www" changes the address. I know that at some point the grand poobahs decided that you didn't have to put in the "www" for searches, but that only works if there's no other site established out there without the "www" when the "www" one is the one you're looking for. (I hope that makes sense.)
I got two different sites on Firefox.
you have some sort of spyware on your system redirecting certain url requests
(I see you already retracted this). I would say that possibility is not likely. It really looks like a DNS screwup.
fractalid, looks like you're right. I hit refresh on the first page and it changed to the Mary Beth's Angels page.
ahhh... have to love incompetent admins.
It is a DNS problem. Here's what dig shows on the two versions of the domain:
funnyboneusa.com. 66.128.123.142
funnyboneusa.com. 66.128.123.139
funnyboneusa.com. 66.128.123.141
funnyboneusa.com. 66.128.123.140
www.funnyboneusa.com. 66.128.123.139
Their primary name server is listed as SERVER01.FUNNYBONEUSA.COM so it looks like an in-house mistake. My guess is that they recently added three extra servers for load balancing, and forgot to fix the DNS for the www.
I get the same site everytime. (mac/firefox). Why can't I get the other sites?
Because they don't like you Zanshin and don't want you to see the extra cool super fun stuff we're all enjoying.
As I've always feared.
/sniff
Weird self-link ever.
WeirdEST. EST.
Boy it's late early.
ahhh... have to love incompetent admins.
I love you too. :P
(I get 2 different sites using Safari. Same 2 sites every time ... refresh doesn't change 'em.)
So are we all going to Boise open mike night to see danielo?
Heh. grover96, consider yourself comped into the show, for your digging persistence is ... well, persistent.
Thanks to the rest for the explanation. I have no vested interest in the site, but was curious about the technicalities of the error that was evident, if completely mysterious, to me.
Zanshin and others, not that anyone really cares at this point (open mic night sounds fun, though)! But funnyboneusa.com is obviously doing some kind of load balancing, which is why they have the one domain name pointing to four different IP addresses.
Load balancing is meant to split up the work between servers. Picture a club with a really popular dance floor. The management decides hey, we should have four dance floors, that way it won't get so crowded.
There are a lot of different ways to split up the load. Say you decide to assign dancers to specific floors by handing out color-coded bracelets. You could:
1. Hand out bracelets for the green floor until it's full, then start handing out bracelets for the red floor, and so forth. This means traffic to each floor is capped, and once the cap is reached, the extra "spills over" to the next floor.
2. Hand out bracelets in order - green, red, yellow, blue, green, red, yellow, blue. This means that each floor will have the same amount of relatively low traffic. None of the floors will ever be at full capacity, which may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you're going for.
The next question is, at what point do you hand out the bracelet?
A. You can assign bracelets to each person as they walk in the door, and that's your floor for the entire night. (From a browser/website perspective, this is accomplished by setting session variables for each visitor, most likely in a cookie.)
B. You can assign bracelets each time someone wants to step onto the dance floor. Someone would dance on the red floor, get tired, step off, take a break, and when they come back, you hand them a new bracelet.
With so many people saying "I keep seeing the same site!" my guess would be that funnyboneusa.com is probably using method #A for assigning traffic. If you clear your cache and restart your computer, the next time you hit that URL you'll probably see a different site.
I'm also guessing - based on nothing more than a hunch - that they're using option #1 for balancing the load. I notice that the www domain points to the 66.128.123.139 IP address, which is the same IP being used by one of the funnyboneusa.com domains.
It would make sense if .139 was their original server - which is why the www points there, because originally there was only one IP address. At some point they added servers 140, 141, and 142 as overflow. So 90% of the time you'll be hitting the 139 server whether you use www or not - the remaining 10% of the time, the 139 server is too busy, so if you hit funnyboneusa.com you get assigned to either 140, 141, or 142. And apparently at least one of those three servers is showing something different from the 139 server.
I totally know that no one cares about this at all, but it's really slow at work tonight. :)
lateearly.