Poindexter Posted February 28, 2003 Posted February 28, 2003 Hey everyone! First of all, let me say that as I continue to read more and more reviews about TCH, I continue to get warm fuzzies and realize that I certainly made the right choice. (Not many businesses give you great service when you have screwed up the ordering process at 3 a.m. but TCH certainly did.....whole story for another day!) My question is this..... My domain has been in purgatory for a while now with the obligatory "Under Construction" signs. I have finally pulled together the information and design for a website and now I am debating on whether or not to use a subdomain for this site. I am basically using my hosting package to create websites related to my widely-varied personal interests. So, here's the options I've been thinking about... 1. Create a main page with links to pages for all of the different interests so that the address would be www.mydomain.us/index.htm with links on the index.htm page. 2. Create a subdomain for each interest and then put links to each on the main domain page. This would mean that if someone did not know the subdomain (subdomain.mydomain.us) they could go to the main page (www.mydomain.us/index.htm) and click on the links for subdomain.mydomain.us. My concern here is that I will be both creating subdomains and using disk space unneccesarily. My organizational OCD has been in hyperdrive lately and I am trying arrange this so that everything will operate as smoothly and effectively as possible. Can anyone think of any pros or cons to doing this either way or know of a better way entirely? Does it matter if I choose one or the other? Thanks, Steve Quote
Andrew Posted February 28, 2003 Posted February 28, 2003 and now I am debating on whether or not to use a subdomain for this site. Do you mean "whether or not to use subdomains"? Well, regardless, here's my $.02: I don't see any particular advantage to using subdomains (e.g., softball.mydomain.us) vs. subdirectories (www.mydomain.us/softball). Subdomains are a bit cooler sounding, but most people are used to typing in "www" first and might forget that. Of course, you could do both -- have softball.mydomain.us point to www.mydomain.us/softball... but either way, I think a lot of people are going to start at your home page and not really pay attention to the name/subdomain/subdirectory that they end up in after they click. Andrew Quote
bethohio3 Posted February 28, 2003 Posted February 28, 2003 Hi! I think of subdomains as most useful when they are not going to be linked from the main site. As an example, I am a Girl Scout leader. I am going to create a subdomain (troop###.****), which will be passworded. There will not be links from my main site--anyone who needs to go there will have to remember the link. I will put troop-specific information on that subdomain. *It* might contain a link to my main site--but not vice versa. For me, the key question to ask is "Should this be part of my overall navigation scheme?" (Corrollary: Do I want people who are visiting TopicA to be lured into TopicB?" If you do, then put TopicA and TopicB as directories under your main page and build your navigation bars to encourage movement from one area to another. If the answer is no, then build subdomains. To be pedantic for a minute, here is my personal example: "Do I want people who have stumbled across my pages on Ohio's Motorcycle Safety Class to be lured into reading about my troop's plans for Camporee in May?" The answer to that question is "no"--so the troop is a subdomain. "Do I want people who have stumbled across my pages on Ohio's Motorcyle Safety Class to be lured into viewing my tattoo and reading about baby's sleep schedules?" The answer to that is "Sure, why not, if they're interested." So, the tattoo pictures and writings about sleep schedules, pregnancy, delivery, etc. are all part of my navigation scheme. I hope this helps! --Beth Quote
Lianna Posted February 28, 2003 Posted February 28, 2003 Good points Beth. Poindexter, for your purposes, I agree with Andrew. One real benefit in subdomain use is to reduce a long, complicated, un-rememberable address into a simple address for your visitors. For example: If I wanted people to be able to easily reach: http://****/family/summer76/lake/index.html I could create a subdomain called: http://lake76.**** But it sounds for your purposes that subdomains are not really necessary. Subdirectories ARE, and I agree with your organization with links on the home index page to each of the subdirectories. Smart. Lianna Quote
TCH-Rick Posted February 28, 2003 Posted February 28, 2003 I agree with Beth. I have a site that I built for my math students to practice concepts from class, take quizzes, etc. and I used a subdomain to make it easy to remember. The main problem I had was that rather than type math.veazeys.com several added www in front of it and got en error. Another advantage is that you can view stats for each subdomain from the cPanel so I can tell easily how many people are viewing specific portions of my site. Quote
TCH-JimE Posted February 28, 2003 Posted February 28, 2003 For my site its incredable useful. I have so many topics thats its easier to change them into sub domains. E.g. forum.myname.com Painting.myname.com Models.myname.com links.myname.com Otherwise the structing would he horredous! Jim Quote
SEO Posted February 28, 2003 Posted February 28, 2003 I have to add my $0.015 (notice my rates are cheaper then Andrews). I am basically using my hosting package to create websites related to my widely-varied personal interests. Having said that, I agree with any organizational arguments for subdomains. However, if you were a commercial site, information site, etc. where you would want people to find you, it would not be in your best interest to use unlinked subdomains. This has to do with one of my favorite topics, search engine optimization. The design of a web site's structure (internal linking) is critical with regard to how a search engine spider's algorithm is going to rank your site. In essence, a fragmented site using subdomains (unlinked) would 'look' like only one small site, which would default to the information in your index.html file associated with your 'real' domain. Unless you had external links to your subdomains, they would never be indexed. Make sense? Quote
Andrew Posted February 28, 2003 Posted February 28, 2003 One other thing I figure I'll point out (this'll only cost ya 100 yen): With Internet Explorer, anyway, it 'anticipates' the site you want if you've been there already. That is, once I start typing in "www.cn..." it suggests that I want to go to www.cnn.com. So... because so many sites start with "www," if you use a subdomain like "photos.****," as soon as someone types in the letter "p" it will suggest your site. (Everyone follow? I think I got that right.) That's a positive. A negative is that most people still don't think of sites as beginning with anthing other than "www," so you'll get a certain percentage of folks trying to get to "www.photos.****" and others who will forget to use the subdomain at all -- they'll either skip it or try "www.****/photos." Me, I'm a fan of short subdirectories. I have kantor.com/this, kantor.com/that, and so on. But that's me. Andrew Quote
Poindexter Posted February 28, 2003 Author Posted February 28, 2003 Okay, if my math is correct, I currently owe all of you the sum total of 88.5 cents.....the check will be in the mail I do owe all of you a big thank you for your input. After reading everyone's replies, I have come up with the following: I am going to go ahead and use subdomains based on Beth's pedantics Do I want people who have stumbled across my pages on Ohio's Motorcycle Safety Class to be lured into reading about my troop's plans for Camporee in May?" The answer to that question is "no"--so the troop is a subdomain. "Do I want people who have stumbled across my pages on Ohio's Motorcyle Safety Class to be lured into viewing my tattoo and reading about baby's sleep schedules?" The answer to that is "Sure, why not, if they're interested." So, the tattoo pictures and writings about sleep schedules, pregnancy, delivery, etc. are all part of my navigation scheme. Eventually my site will have the following: divination.sinisterdexter.us This site will be for people in my regional area to learn about and discuss (nice discussion forum planned) tarot, runes, divination, telepathy, etc. photography.sinisterdexter.us This site will be devoted to my new hobby and ongoing learning in digital and film photography. outdoor.sinisterdexter.us This site will be sort of a personal documentation of places in my area where I like to camp, hike, and flyfish (and let me tell you it is incredibly hard to catch a fly ). flyrods.sinisterdexter.us This will be for my interest in building custom flyrods and may even eventually lead to a little business on the side. As you can see, my interests are widely varied and I doubt seriously that anyone viewing one site will be interested in another with the exception of maybe the outdoor and the flyrods (I may put links to each other). I also like the fact that I can check the stats for each subdomain (thanks Rick) and that addresses would be easier to find by using subdomains (thanks Liana and Andrew). Thanks again for all your input! Steve Quote
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