Alright, just because I don't like calling these subdomains, when it's wrong technically, I'll post the link to the thread where I explain what a subodmain really is.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25222

Now that that is clear, here's my question.

I see a lot of people requesting web hosting and saying things like "subdomains are a must", or "I need unlimited subdomains". What are these people using the "subdomains" for?

I can't think of what you could be doing where they would be a must have.

Can any one of these numerous people who have this need please explain to me what your need is for them? And do you mean that you need the "subdomains" to point to a subdirectory of the primary webspace (most of these requests don't specify).

Thank you.

Originally posted by bitserve
Can anyone explain to me what their need is for them? And do these people mean that they need the "subdomains" to point to a subdirectory of their webspace?

Well I'd say for the most part, it is just to distinguish one part of a site from another, or to give a name to something without buying another domain. Yes, you could just have folders domain.com/forum instead of forum.domain.com but really either way works for me.

I don't think you can generalize and say that people do, or do not, mean they want subdomains to point to subdirectories, though that is often a common request. Sometimes they want full subdomain accounts.

I have built a few of these sites, for slightly different applications.

Here's one.

The domain is generic, applicable to the topic at hand. I'll call it woodworker.net - though that's not it :).

The woodworker network is a cooperative that supports woodworking and woodworkers. Members can have free web space within the cooperative to support their businesses.

Their webspage looks like this:

baldecker.woodworker.net
makeminewood.woodworker.net
finelycrafted.woodworker.net

etc.

These woodworkers are not interested in their own domain names or full blown websites, but they are interested in a web presence. This gives them one with clear ties to the woodworker network - which they also find advantagous.

They are implemented as directories within the woodworker.net webspace, and they have FTP access to this directory and below for making their own updates - as well as a cgi-bin directory.

There are a couple of other subdomains at the woodworker network that are interesting as well:

forums.woodworker.net contains the discussion forums.
classifieds.woodworker.net is an online classifieds system.
coop.woodworker.net is the co-operative store for members.

These simply make for easily remembered or communicated URLs when telling people where to go for assistance.,

The process continues.

Why unlimited subdomains in this model? The webmaster does not want to deal with contacting the hosting company each time he wants to add a new subdomain. Since there is no additional cost to members to have a simple web presence, tracking and managing things like "$5 for every 10 subdomains" is more overhead than it's worth. With an automated system for adding subdomains, there is no additional overhead for the hosting company, so why limit the number of subdomains?

Does this help explain at least one use of the feature?

-t

Chicken, I wasn't trying to generalize, I was trying to get more than one answer from more than one of the people who have made these requests for "unlimited subdomains". I was also realizing that none of the requests for "unlimited subdomains" is it specified if they need them to point to a subdirectory.

I can think of very few things that someone might use them for. Maybe a community like thewitt mentioned would make sense, but I doubt everyone is doing that with them. I suspect it's something very odd, and am very curious. Seems like it might just be the latest trend in what people are asking for these days. Like it used to be PHP, or MySQL, now it's JSP and unlimited subdomains.

Usually what it's from is someone reading an article on choosing a web hosting provider. "Make sure they offer JSP." So that's the one buzzword that they have when they're shopping around, even though they'll never use JSP, they know to look for it.

Anyway, I edited my post to clarify the data that I was trying to collect. I swear I've never known that subdomains was a big selling point for some people before coming to this forum.

Most people use subdomains for organization. It is much easier for people to go to forum.domain.com then type in domain.com/forum. From my experience I would say most of them want the subdomain to point to a requested directory.

My site's target audience is usually girls ages 13-18, and usually when these girls look for hosting, they want subdomains because they usually would like to host their friends. I'm guessing that yourdomain.com/dir reminds them too much of the crappy freeservers out there. dir.yourdomain.com looks like you've been hosted. It also kind of gives the illusion that because you have a subdomain, your site must be good to be hosted.

It's true. I haven't been to a freeserver site in a long time, unless I'm looking for anime images or something. People are just more drawn to domains and subdomains.

Another nice thing about sub-domains is load balancing. I have my main account on one server and a subdomain points to my shared server for shared SSL access. Large companies use it, as well as other load-balancing techniques, to handle heavy traffic loads.

There are also the people out there that go subdomain crazy and change them and request new ones more than they change their own underwear. Basically they are only good if you are trying to host different people on your account which would give them their own access. If for some reason your server cant handle subdomains and the domain all on one then it would be easy to use but 90% of the users out there really dont need them, they could just use a directory.