Maybe this is a daft question but what advantage is there to using subdomains to organise your own site?

I notice a lot of larger sites use for instance pc.ign ps2.ign etc

Now I know ign will have tons of servers but I see smaller sites doing it to. Is there any good reason to do this since as far as I can see they show up with either sub.site.com or site.com/sub at least if on the same server. So I don't see an organisational advantage there.

I would be grateful to have this explained as I have thought of doing it afew times and in middle of building a couple of new sites. So if a good reason I might impliment it.


THanks.

Hello,

This is just my opinion but I feel it more convienent/professional to use subdomains such as forum.yoursite.com rather than having to type yoursite.com/forum. It kind of has a more organized feel.

Typically the only things I use forums for are things like:
- support.site.com
- forum.site.com
- dev.site.com
- webmail.site.com

I think you get the point now.

Thanks,
Dan

Its also good for Search engine optimisation. I mean its something called themeing your site using the concept of canonicals. Also, it helps you do better interlinking within your own site, which can give you a better structure at the end.

Other than that, subdomains get same PR value as that of your main domain. So instead of using folders or sub-directories, use sub-domains, if your host allows you or gives you enuf quota.

Cheers

I see, well I suppose. I just figure it easier for a visitor to type mysite.com/forums than forum.mysite.com...guess it is six and half a dozen. For organising I do not see any advantage as they show up on the server as sub directories anyway....

Though I can see the point if you are using multiple servers so you can point the dns.

With search engines are you saying that putting say images.yoursite.com means the engine take the first part of the ULR as being more important/relevant. Canon as it were?

With PR (?) I am not sure what you mean. Are you saying that say our main pag eis ranked 6 by google that all the subdomains pick up this rank as well instead of getting their own?

Like I say if there is a real advantage then I would definetly do this.
Thanks

James

makes life easier incase domain.com/forum gets so busy and want to move then creating forum.domain.com and forwarding domain.com/forum to it

same goes for other subdomains like webmail.* billing.* etc...

Yip I see that. So if a section gets so busy it needs its own server then just change the dns rather than a whole load of hassle.

Thanks folks, that makes sense to me now :)