"On website" or "at website"? [duplicate]
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Which sentence is grammatically correct?
- The papers are freely available at the journal website.
- The papers are freely available on the journal website.
Using Google's search results:
- available at the website returns 72,800,000 results.
- available on the website returns 106,000,000 results.
So, I inferred that both variants are popular. Is this method (comparing the number of results by Googling) sound?
Solution 1:
Speaking as a longtime computer geek, files are said to reside on a hard drive or on a certain machine. Since I know that a website is made of computer files, I think of a website as being on a machine and so any part of the website is also on that machine.
A website's "address" is a "Uniform Resource Locator" or URL. These terms connote the idea of website as "place". In this case the file would be at the website location.
So, if you think of a website as it is actually constructed (files stored on hard drives), you will probably say on.
If you think in the location metaphor, you will probably say at.
Personally I find myself saying "on" to other geeks and falling into "at" when speaking with normal people.
Solution 2:
For some purposes, the method is sound.
What's in use is generally what's correct, or what will become correct if it's used long enough. Even if it's not strictly correct, if it's very commonly used it's still usable, people will understand it, and few will react to any inaccuracies. If it's very popular, it's simply good enough for most purposes.
If you are writing something where you really need to be correct, looking at what's popular is not a sure method to find that out. Something that is incorrect can still become more popular than the correct form.
In the case of "website", it's not so clear what's correct, as a website is a rather abstract phenomenon. If you think of it as a site on the web, "at" would be correct, but if you think of it as a page on the web, "on" would be correct.