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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-27 05:54
What's the latest on subdomains versus folders? I really don't know jack about either, but I was reading some stuff here from a while back that subdomains are better than directories, and I assume a directory is like a folder, right?
So if you have one site with, say, five topics, it's better to have:
subdomain1.mysite.com, subdomain2.mysite.com, etc., than having this:
mysite.com/topic1/
mysite.com/topic2/
mysite.com/topic3/ etc.?
Hmmm.
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bhartzer
Staff
Joined: Jun 08, 2000
# Posts: 7042
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Posted: 2004-Oct-27 22:23
Subdirectories and folders are treated completely the same when it comes to rankings. No additional weight is given to one or the other.
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-27 23:00
Cool. I think that's good news. Now we don't have to mess with subdomains. Thanks! :o)
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10465
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Posted: 2004-Oct-27 23:39
Make your site logical for your real human visitors.
If they can't find their way around your site, they'll go someplace else.
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vanachte
Joined: Feb 10, 2004
# Posts: 405
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Posted: 2004-Oct-28 00:37
I would have to agree that subdomains will carry the same weight as folders, but for some users, they may prefer product.store.com? I dunno.
I had heard before that subdomains tend to rank higher in the search engines, but after some experimenting, I found, like bhartzer says, they are treated the same (at least from what I have found)
However, what if you were to have the subdomain hosted on a different IP? Is this even possible, and if it is, would it make a difference? My guess is it would be too big of a pain to be worthwhile.
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-28 01:17
g1smd, I love ya like a brother, but we get about two human visitors per year! :o) Okay, I'm exaggerating......
We are going to try and make things as best as we can for visitors, but more out of courtesy than for ranking purposes. Our .Mac HomePages were great for visitors, but because of a lack of the L word I think, many of them ranked poorly. Actually peoples' favorite site (the Jill Hennessy site), according to the emails we received, ranked very poorly, due mainly to high-ranking commercial sites that claimed to have pics of Jill with no clothes on. :o)
Not complainin' but telling it like it is, at least for us. :o) Ranking is more of a competition for us, since most people can find our sites if they're really looking.
So anyhoo, by giving people what they want, do you mean that if we do this, eventually people will link to us? We're hoping they will! :o) We're being patient. We've written a lot of e-mails, but we think instead of wasting more time with that, we need to come up with NEW ideas about relevant sites that might link to us. I'm going to do some searching but maybe I should post that as a separate topic. :o)
Thanks very much for the help!
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-28 01:22
vanachte, I'm not sure what you mean by having the subdomain hosted on a different IP. But from what little I know it sounds like it could help. If I call tech support and ask I have a feeling they're going to be like WHA? so if there's an easy way to explain that I'd love ya! :o)
But anyhoo thanks very much for the response and the idea!
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vanachte
Joined: Feb 10, 2004
# Posts: 405
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Posted: 2004-Oct-29 00:29
Basically Sites are hosted on various IPS (sometimes your network of sites are hosted on the same physicial IP, sometimes on their own IP) (A subdomain, from a hosting standpoing is considered its own unique website)
If you asked tech support about IP's I would hope they would understand completley, or they are in the wrong business. (assuming you mean hosting tech support)
--- My definition of IP really sucks. Its been a long day and for the life of me I cannot think of a good way to describe it. Perhapes one of the Gurus like Bhartzer or G1smd can explain it well enough.
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-29 01:07
vanachte-
You said:
> A subdomain, from a hosting standpoint is considered its own
> unique website.
I'm assuming, then, that hosting standpoints and SE standpoints are very different then?
In the other message we just got from you, you hinted that it would be better SE-wise to go with separate sites unless the topics are mega-related. (For those of you just joining us, our sites are all 1980s-90s actors and actresses, but unrelated outside of that.) Unless I'm missing something (I may very well be), then SEs and hosting look at things very differently.
The thing is, at no extra cost, with our new site we're allowed 10 subdomains for free, and we have eight actresses/actors, who are not super related. The sites will be user friendly no problemo, but I'm thinking MAYBE separate domains, strictly in terms of SE-friendliness. :o) Hmmmmm.......
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-29 01:08
vanachte, thanks very much for the help by the way, with this one and the other one you just posted to.
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seo tester
Joined: Aug 23, 2004
# Posts: 42
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Posted: 2004-Oct-29 06:59
sundomains do not have to be separate sites from a hosting standpoint, not do they need to be the same site. Where you host content and how you set up your DNS (which controls what IP each subdomain resolve to) have no direct relationship. You can have a subdomain hosted on the same server and same IP address as the primary domain, or on a different server with different IP or on the same server, but with a different IP.
Fo the most part, none of these technical details are relevant to your original question, which was already answered - directories vs subdomains - 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other.
Subdomains on a separate server with a unique IP can be a good solution for a new site wanting to avoid the sandbox effect (at least in theory). In other words, a subdomain may be a better solution for a new web site than a brand new domain.
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-29 18:44
seo tester-
We are just SOOO close to understanding this, so thanks very much!! :o)
> For the most part, none of these technical details are relevant to your
> original question, which was already answered - directories vs
> subdomains - 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other.
Just to be crystal clear......
In another related topic, vanachte and I were talking about having 8 separate "fansites" (for 8 unrelated actors), and how much good it would do not in terms of visitors BUT only in terms of SEs, to move each actor to his own completely separate domain, like actor1.com, actor2.com, etc.
Instead of what we have now, which is like 8actors.com, and then each actor gets his own subdirectory.
http://www.jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/thread::1098915100/forum::seo-101/type::mythreads/
So when you say 6 one, half-dozen the other, are you saying this because:
(a) Eight separate subdomains, even all hosted on different IPs, are not considered separate sites to the search engines?
or.....
(b) Eight separate subdomains all hosted on different IPs ARE considered separate sites to the search engines, but having these separate subdomains, OR having absolutely separate sites for each actor wouldn't be any better than what you have now, which is 1 site, 8 actors.
In other words, regarding only SE ranking and indexing, having "eight-actors.com" with either 8 subdomains OR 8 subdirectories is no better than having:
actor1.com
actor2.com
actor3.com
actor4.com ..... etc.....
Hmmmmm......
I guess my question really boils down to something like "relevant content vs overall content."
In other words, regarding, say, 5 good text pages of Jacqueline Hennessy information (interviews, articles, etc.) if they are all by themselves on a completely separate site, would this be better than these exact same, good 5 pages on a site with 7 other actors?
This may have been answered somewhere here "between the lines"; I need to look again. As far as "between the lines," my brain has trouble with this:
2+2 for me is always 2+2, never 4. If people mean 4, they'd have said it! 2+2 equals 4 mathematically but in mathematical language 2+2 and 4 are obviously different! :o)
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vanachte
Joined: Feb 10, 2004
# Posts: 405
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Posted: 2004-Oct-30 00:28
SEO Tester, Thanks for clarifying that. A few pieces of info there that I was unaware of, very good to know.  Tahnks.
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seo tester
Joined: Aug 23, 2004
# Posts: 42
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Posted: 2004-Oct-30 06:14
The whole answer is a bit longer than i have time for right now, but the short version is this:
To rank well in Google you need backlinks. The more backlinks the better. The higher the PR of the inbound links, the better. The more related the inbound links, the better. It is generally much harder to get lots of high quality, relevant backlinks to 8 sites than it is to 1. Interlinking 8 sites, each with few other quality links is more likely to get you penalized than it is to help you. Don't get me wrong, your 8 site strategy can work, but it requires a lot of backlinks to each site, not all the same links to each of the 8 sites and making sure you don't interlink all sites. Instead link site 1 to sites 2 and 3, site 2 to sites 3 and 4, etc.
Again, I'd recommend going with just one site, create a good internal linking structure and focus on getting good backlinks to the 1 site.
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Hampstead
Joined: Feb 20, 2001
# Posts: 2061
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Posted: 2004-Oct-30 09:01
From a SE point of view, I haven't seen sub domains appearing in search results during my standard browsing activities for some time now.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-30 14:21
SEO Tester-
I love ya like a brother but you totally lost me! (This is my fault.) In reaction to scolding, I have been sticking religiously to these two separate definitions:
SITE: Site in the strictest sense of the word: domain, as in "example.com." Defined by the fact that it's a hosting "package" unto itself.
FANSITE: Defined only by INTRA-(fan)site linkage; what the visitor sees when he or she goes there. Nothing inherently to do with a domain, although sometimes the fansite-to-domain ratio is in fact 1:1. "The Jayne Brook Wacky Fansite" and "The Kerry Condon Cutie Site" may both actually belong to the same domain, but you MIGHT not know that when you visit either fansite, because all you MIGHT see would be intra-fansite links to other fansite pages of the one particular site.
In other words a fansite could be: an independent section of a domain, a dependent part/section of a domain, or its own domain.
This is a site:
http://s****edrivers.com
This is a hypothetical example of a "fansite" but not a site:
http://s****edrivers.com/sites/jacqueline-hennessy-example-site/
When you say our "eight-site strategy," do you mean the way we have it now, "8 fansites: 1 site/domain," or did you mean our theoretical strategy, our considering 8 separate domains in the future?
In other words, did you mean keep 8 fansites: 1 site/domain, and try to get links to the index page of that 1 domain, or did you mean the converse, or the inverse, or the opposite? :o)
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-30 14:34
Hampstead-
You know yesterday I called in to hosting tech support and they said, "to set up a subdomain, you type in the name of the desired subdomain and then type in the folder you want it to point to."
FOLDER?!? NO WONDER PEOPLE KEPT TELLING ME A SUBDOMAIN WAS LIKE A DIRECTORY! IT JUST POINTS TO ONE?!?!?
In other words there were two blank fields and you were supposed to type in:
subdomain.mydomain.com ---> mydomain.com/myfolder1
I mean I thought a subdomain was supposed to be a whole different folder not even inside your domain, like when you're in Dreamweaver and you see the "FTP:blahblahsite," I guess I was thinking it would be like a whole entire different site, not accessible through FTP:blahblahsite as a folder within that, but accessible as FTP:subdomain.blahblahsite
I have not had my coffee yet, so maybe I'm still wrong; maybe there's a third understading.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10465
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Posted: 2004-Oct-30 15:23
A Domain is domain.com on its own.
Most people use www.domain.com for their site, and that is a subdomain of domain.com too.
You can have whateveryouwant.domain.com and each is a separate subdomain.
If you do use www.domain.com for content then do redirect all requests for domain.com to www.domain.com otherwise you will appear to be serving up two identical sites: one at domain.com and the other at www.domain.com. Search engines don't like that, they want to list one or the other, not both.
A site can have many folders, www.domain.com/news/ and www.domain.com/products/ and so on. Those appear as folders in your webspace when you FTP in to it too.
For subdomains, the site is still going to be in a folder on the hard-drive of the web-server, you just have to tell the server the extra step: don't serve the folder as a folder inside www.domain.com, like www.domain.com/folder/, but serve it as subdomain.domain.com instead.
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-30 16:22
g1smd, I've been trying to read about the whole "WWW" situation, and I haven't come across anything as to why people would want to use the www subdomain. We wanted to "say" www.whatever for our domain names (ones we had that dangerously redirected using frames) that had less common extensions (co.uk, uk.net) so that people who were even less internet-savvy than we are would know that yes, it is in fact a domain name.
For example, when people see "kerry-condon-fansite.com", they know it's something you can type into your browser and that it's something more geared toward Kerry Condon than "Kerry Condon Nude! This site has nothing to do with Kerry Condon! It's just porn!"
".com" is very familiar to everyone. However "kerry-condon.co.uk" to a newcomer to the internet might look like a filename or whatever.
I'll have to go back into our hosting and see exactly what we are capable of doing. I assume this varies between hosting companies.
Thanks again for all the great info! :o)
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swervedrivers
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
# Posts: 237
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Posted: 2004-Oct-30 16:48
So "domain" and "domain name" aren't exactly the same, right?
In other words, "303 Example Street" when meaning the actual residence is like the domain, and "303 Example Street" meaning the address (the concept) is like the domain name?
This is basically what we think a domain is (a definition we constructed from about ten unclear and illogical defintions we found):
DOMAIN - A domain is a hierarchical system used to define a specific internet location or set of addressable computers; the term is part of the the internet's addressing scheme.
So there's "303 Example Street" and "303 B Example Street", etc.....
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