Re: URL Structures in Advertising?

From: Andrew Maisel <andrew_at_superkids.com>
Date: Thu 24 Jan 2002 09:21:48 -0500

This is a rather old argument -- subdomains vs. subdirectories.
There is no one right answer for everyone. However, for your
situation, I think these are the key considerations:

Advantages of your suggestion (subdomains)
------------------------------------------
o Arguably easier to remember than subdirectories

o Easier/faster to obtain and control than base-level domain
names -- the owner of the domain name owns and controls all
sub-domains. (Their increasing prevalence is partially due
to this, esp. among small sites wanting to avoid costs, and
the web-hosting resellers that target this market.)

o Search engines will index more total pages. Since most
treat a subdomain as a separate domain, their spiders
will crawl each subsite to a greater depth. See --
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-sep1999/materials/dsullivan/listed.ppt

o Similarly, directories tend to view subdomains as separate
sites, and are therefore more likely to index more pages


Disadvantages of Subdomains
----------------------------
o There is some additional administrative overhead involved
with setting up and maintaining subdomains. For example,
your webmaster will have to edit the webserver's
configuration to allow the use of each subdomain. In
addition, the subdomains will probably generate their own set
of log files, which must be created, then monitored. See --
http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/software/apache_more_config.html


Net -net
---------
I'd say that if you have a big site, with lots of pages
you'd like indexed by search engines and directories, go
with the sub-domain nomenclature. Otherwise, the extra
effort involved probably isn't worth it, for the
minimally greater sub-brand name exposure.

Andrew Maisel
http://www.superkids.com/
The parent's and teacher's guide to education!







Received on Thu Jan 24 2002 - 08:21:48 CST