Author Topic: Sub Domain or New Domain Question (Read 15573 times)

Pixart · « **on:** April 05, 2013, 11:42 »

I have a website for my photography business that is a legitimate business with a license and tax numbers etc. (It would make sense for me to run stock photos through this business too so I don't have to register a new one yet)

I have other domains and have been test building a SymStock site on one of them.

My main site is a WordPress site, but after reading all the questions to the designer of the template it doesn't play nice with shopping carts and certain plugins.

I don't really know what a subdomain is other than it would be www.pixartdesign.stockphotos.com (Maybe?). Now - can I make that subdomain a fully independent site? Can I install a new database and the SS theme independent of my main domain - or does everything run through that main template?

Yes, I know next to nothing about this stuff.

Pixart · « **Reply #1 on:** April 05, 2013, 11:54 »

Okay, now I'm tripping. Do you see a link in the post above. If you click it does it take you to an Image works site and not just a 404 since I haven't created it yet. (Just tried on the Mac too!) How the heck did that happen?

Edit - okay - whois says they own the "stockphotos.com" domain. Makes sense...
!

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #2 on:** April 05, 2013, 12:00 »

I can only answer for Justhost. My main site - kerioak.com is run on Wordpress, I then created a subdomain - stockimages.kerioak.com and installed Wordpress on that along with symbiostock - and the two appear to run separately and well from what I can see.

I have another domain on which I run opencart with wordpress on a subdomain so it seems to work . Does that help at all?

grsphoto · « **Reply #3 on:** April 05, 2013, 12:13 »

Thanks for this... I never thought about doing this on an sub-domain...

click_click · « **Reply #4 on:** April 05, 2013, 12:17 »

since you are already own a licensed photography business, I think it would make most sense to run Smybiostock on the same domain using a subdomain.

Right now your business web site is: http://pixartdesign.com/

In order to run a separate Wordpress installation with its own database you can use something like: http://stock-photos.pixartdesign.com/

You can/could design your Symbiostock site identical to your business web site and link to each of them to make it look like as if the visitor is never leaving your main web site (they aren't leaving your domain anyway...).

Then you can run both sites independently which in my opinion gives you a little more freedom than trying to cram all of it into one site.

click_click · « **Reply #5 on:** April 05, 2013, 12:17 »

Ooops, and you save a little money on registering a new domain as well.

gbalex · « **Reply #6 on:** April 05, 2013, 12:25 »

Sites often use the subdomain secure.site.com for their shopping cart.

Travelling-light · « **Reply #7 on:** April 05, 2013, 12:25 »

Quote from: Pixart on April 05, 2013, 11:54

Okay, now I'm tripping. Do you see a link in the post above. If you click it does it take you to an Image works site and not just a 404 since I haven't created it yet. (Just tried on the Mac too!) How the heck did that happen?

Edit - okay - whois says they own the "stockphotos.com" domain. Makes sense...
!

The important thing in Internet naming is that URLs run in increasing order of importance, so -

stockphoto (subdomain) . mysite (domain) . com (Top Level Domain)

Subdomains are effectively independent of domains except for the addressing, and can have totally different purposes and identities. Our main domain is travelling-light.net, but currently has subdomains of images (points to Photoshelter), photo (Symbiostock test site), blog (WP blog to match images), store (Zazzle storefront) and a family photo album.

Any multisite hosting package will let you set these up.

Pixart · « **Reply #8 on:** April 05, 2013, 12:47 »

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm glad I asked.

Maybe someone has an opinion about this:

click mentioned subdomain "stock-photos" . Does the dash - maybe help with google, or can I leave that out?

I also own domain pixartpress that I should have no probs running sales through my registered business. Any reason to/not-to use this vs sub-domain? I could always point pixartpress to sub-domain so I would have an easier domain to remember.

Rebelstock is mine - but not a registered business so no numbers or bank accounts. I was wondering about running receipts through it from my pixart account. But, wouldn't that confuse the customers?

I do like the name rebelstock though - I registered it years ago when we were talking about a coop. A symbol of the peasants uprising.

click_click · « **Reply #9 on:** April 05, 2013, 12:52 »

Quote from: Pixart on April 05, 2013, 12:47

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm glad I asked.

Maybe someone has an opinion about this:

click mentioned subdomain "stock-photos" . Does the dash - maybe help with google, or can I leave that out?

I also own domain pixartpress that I should have no probs running sales through my registered business. Any reason to/not-to use this vs sub-domain? I could always point pixartpress to sub-domain so I would have an easier domain to remember.

Rebelstock is mine - but not a registered business so no numbers or bank accounts. I was wondering about running receipts through it from my pixart account. But, wouldn't that confuse the customers?

I do like the name rebelstock though - I registered it years ago when we were talking about a coop. A symbol of the peasants uprising.

You could create a URL forward from rebelstock to your new sub-domain if you want to make it easier in terms of business licensing and tax purposes. Just my 2 cents.

The "stock-photo" thing is something I do. I'm not a SEO guru but I thought it would not only be easier for search engines to separate any words but also look better than stockphotos. Also just my 2 cents. I could be totally off though so maybe some SEO king can chime in

farbled · « **Reply #10 on:** April 05, 2013, 13:01 »

Quote from: Pixart on April 05, 2013, 11:42

I have a website for my photography business that is a legitimate business with a license and tax numbers etc. (It would make sense for me to run stock photos through this business too so I don't have to register a new one yet)

I have other domains and have been test building a SymStock site on one of them.

My main site is a WordPress site, but after reading all the questions to the designer of the template it doesn't play nice with shopping carts and certain plugins.

I don't really know what a subdomain is other than it would be www.pixartdesign.stockphotos.com (Maybe?). Now - can I make that subdomain a fully independent site? Can I install a new database and the SS theme independent of my main domain - or does everything run through that main template?

Yes, I know next to nothing about this stuff.

You can do a completely seperate WP and theme install either in a sub domain or in a new directory. Coincidentally, I'm building my second one right now here: http://photominingstock.com/food/

cascoly · « **Reply #11 on:** April 05, 2013, 13:11 »

subdomains are virtual renamings -- by default they point to the root of the main domain. but you can use the subdomain to point to a non-root folder (this is why subdomains didn't work earlier for symbio)

a separate domain name linking to your other domain would count as an external link, so it may have a stronger effect in SEO

eg http://images.cascoly.com would not have as much effect on the cascoly.com pagerank as http://cascoly-images.com would

in early days the name of your site probably was more significant, but most people now find siyes thru search engines, so the name could be xxx.com with little effect

cathyslife · « **Reply #12 on:** April 05, 2013, 13:14 »

Do not use hyphens in your url.

I have a hosting company with two separate domains. I wanted to create a third for this project. I registered a new domain name, cathyslifestockphotos.com. So i have three folders in my root folder for my three domains. Unless your hosting company is way different than mine, you dont need to use a subdomain if you dont want to.

You might also want to google "do subdomains help seo" as that might be something to consider. There are pros and cons.

Edit:here is a good article explaining it. After a while, it makes my head swim.

http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/multiple-domains-vs-subdomains-vs-folders-in-seo/

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #13 on:** April 05, 2013, 15:06 »

Quote from: cascoly on April 05, 2013, 13:11

subdomains are virtual renamings -- by default they point to the root of the main domain. but you can use the subdomain to point to a non-root folder (this is why subdomains didn't work earlier for symbio)

Strange, my subdomain has worked from day 1 with symbiostock

cascoly · « **Reply #14 on:** April 05, 2013, 17:23 »

Quote from: Tinny on April 05, 2013, 15:06

Quote from: cascoly on April 05, 2013, 13:11
subdomains are virtual renamings -- by default they point to the root of the main domain. but you can use the subdomain to point to a non-root folder (this is why subdomains didn't work earlier for symbio)

Strange, my subdomain has worked from day 1 with symbiostock

did you redirect your subdomain? if not, it's still pointing to the root, so it wouldn't have had the non-root problems

RacePhoto · « **Reply #15 on:** April 09, 2013, 09:23 »

Good discussion, I was working on the sub-domain question myself, and it's good to see what people who know better have found.

Quote from: cclapper on April 05, 2013, 13:14

Do not use hyphens in your url.

Why Not?

cathyslife · « **Reply #16 on:** April 09, 2013, 09:28 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on April 09, 2013, 09:23

Good discussion, I was working on the sub-domain question myself, and it's good to see what people who know better have found.

Quote from: cclapper on April 05, 2013, 13:14
Do not use hyphens in your url.

Why Not?

Do a google search they can explain better.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #17 on:** April 09, 2013, 12:22 »

Google search for what? "Do not use hyphens" ? I'm a little lost and since one of my domains is also name-name.com you have me wondering?

Here's one that I haven't gotten past a parking image. http://stock-photo-exchange.com/ two hyphens! Will I be impossible to find?

Flash: (I'm more worried and I don't use flash because of this) When you are using Flash elements, the HTML used to complement it should follow traditional search engine optimization elements. You want to be paying attention to things like Heading Tags, Alt attributes and using appropriate anchor text.

If you’re afraid that you’ve just spent a million dollars on a site that will never rank, a good check would be to run it through a text browser. If you can’t read your site, neither can the search engines. Fix it.

In easier words, search engines can't read FLASH! But they do read the tags.

Or is it this:

The Myth of "Non-Hyphenated Search Results"

Others argue that most top results reveal non-hyphenated domains and therefore non-hyphenated domains are better. Of course the results are going to reveal more non-hyphenated domains. Why? Because it has traditionally been the convention to obtain non-hyphenated domains, so the majority of sites use these - hence the majority of results contain non-hyphenated domains. The simple fact the the SERPs also contain several quality multi-hyphenated domains is evidence that these domains are not being penalized. The bottom line is quality - sites will quality content organized in quality fashion (see SEO Site Structure) rank well, regardless of domain name technicalities.

I'm not sure because one "expert" says hyphens will lower your rank because it's a spam related indication that site using hyphens are often spam sites. (that was an interesting conclusion?)

And One more, which disagrees with the Spam theory:

Many people have reported that they are seeing drop-offs in rankings of their hyphenated domains in Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Upon further inspection, however, the drop-offs are also being realized by hyphenated domains. The bottom line is that Google is constantly updating their search algorithms, so your page rankings will vary day to day, and often pages will be dropped from the index. But this has nothing to do with hyphens. Just imagine the risk Google, or any SE for that matter, would run if they penalized hyphenated domain names that ended up being high quality sites. A simple, crude filter such as this has nothing to do with distinguishing quality content - and the complex Google algorithms have been refined to a development point that is far beyond this.

Here's my absolute favorite: Remember - cater to your visitor first, not the search engine.

ps Avoid Underscores. Search engines tend to see a hyphen as a separator and an underscore as a joiner.

Quote from: cclapper on April 09, 2013, 09:28

Quote from: RacePhoto on April 09, 2013, 09:23
Good discussion, I was working on the sub-domain question myself, and it's good to see what people who know better have found.

Quote from: cclapper on April 05, 2013, 13:14
Do not use hyphens in your url.

Why Not?

Do a google search they can explain better.

grsphoto · « **Reply #18 on:** April 09, 2013, 12:29 »

I think the biggest reason for non-hyphenation is that I think cpanel doesn't allow it?

cathyslife · « **Reply #19 on:** April 09, 2013, 13:35 »

Google "using hyphens in url"

Travelling-light · « **Reply #20 on:** April 09, 2013, 14:27 »

Quote from: grsphoto on April 09, 2013, 12:29

I think the biggest reason for non-hyphenation is that I think cpanel doesn't allow it?

How do you mean? We have a hyphenated domain hosted on a cpanel administered host.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #21 on:** April 09, 2013, 16:14 »

Quote from: cclapper on April 09, 2013, 13:35

Google "using hyphens in url"

Seems to be like searching for Atlantis. Some say totally myth, some say they have found it. Some say it's allegorical...

Hyphens in URLs = Some people say it's better, some say it's worse, some say no difference.

But after reading this for a few times around, as I've seen the same before. I did decide for sure, no underlines anywhere. It was a problem with names on Alamy and some people said on Macs it did strange things. I've used Hyphens to separate words and folders and image names for a long time. Nice to see, it aids the searches by not causing word blending and confusion.

And I'm happy that other people are working on this, I'd be lost with being new to Wordpress and the potential pitfalls.

I looked at a number of sites and some linked pages, Looks nice Leo!

Pixart · « **Reply #22 on:** July 17, 2013, 12:14 »

Coming back to this post rather than starting a fresh one. Finally have a wee bit of time to play. I have set up a subdomain stock.pixartdesign.com but.....

I can reach it from http://stock.pixartdesign.com but not from http://www.pixartdesign.com. Have I done something wrong with the setup? I would like to be able to hand out this URL, but I automatically type in www when I visit a site.

grsphoto · « **Reply #23 on:** July 17, 2013, 12:24 »

Quote from: Pixart on July 17, 2013, 12:14

Coming back to this post rather than starting a fresh one. Finally have a wee bit of time to play. I have set up a subdomain stock.pixartdesign.com but.....

I can reach it from http://stock.pixartdesign.com but not from http://www.pixartdesign.com. Have I done something wrong with the setup? I would like to be able to hand out this URL, but I automatically type in www when I visit a site.

I assume you mean I can get to it from http://xyz.com but not from http://www.xyz.com. Yes this is normal.
You have to go into your cpanel and do a redirect of www.xyz.com to xyz.com. You don't usually have to worry about this with main domains, but you do with sub domains. Hope this help.

Pixart · « **Reply #24 on:** July 17, 2013, 12:28 »

I did type that in wrong - I cannot reach it from www.stock.pixartdesign.com (forgot to insert the stock. part) Does that change the answer? The primary domain is okay.

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Author Topic: Sub Domain or New Domain Question (Read 15573 times)

Pixart

Pixart

Kerioak~Christine

grsphoto

click_click

click_click

gbalex

Travelling-light

Pixart

click_click

farbled

cascoly

cathyslife

Kerioak~Christine

cascoly

RacePhoto

cathyslife

RacePhoto

grsphoto

cathyslife

Travelling-light

RacePhoto

Pixart

grsphoto

Pixart

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