Hello,

I've noticed that many sites use subdomains for certain sections of their site, like forums and a help desk. I'd like to know what the benefits are to doing this and what would be needed to set up subdomains in the structure of my site.

Thanks
Indera

Originally posted by iem
Hello,

I've noticed that many sites use subdomains for certain sections of their site, like forums and a help desk. I'd like to know what the benefits are to doing this and what would be needed to set up subdomains in the structure of my site.

Thanks
Indera
many benfits....organization.....and most notably you could have subsite.maindomain.com instead of maindoming.com/directory/subsite, or something similar...

most hosting companies use CPanel as their control panel that allows for easy subdomain creation

Originally posted by akash

many benfits....organization.....and most notably you could have subsite.maindomain.com instead of maindoming.com/directory/subsite, or something similar...

most hosting companies use CPanel as their control panel that allows for easy subdomain creation

I just had a thought. It seems like the sections of a site that are on a subdomain are those that contain a script, which you install on the server, instead of part of your regular site.

not necessarily...subdomains can contain anything...

akash is right..imo it is just a more organised way of seperating things within a site.
also..a lot of people...especially those in their 20's and under - have "hostees" where they give a subdomain and private ftp account to someone and that person sets up their own website in that subdomain - then instead of having www.domain.com for their site - they get http://theirname.domain.com for their url...which is MUCH more preferable over http://www.geocities.com/jumbalyafj3944 ;) for example ;)

The reason why it's smart to use a subdomain for a forum or helpdesk, etc, is that a subdomain can point to an IP on another server.

So if hostingcompany.com goes down and they happen to host their helpdesk on a more stable server, then helpdesk.hostingcompany.com can remain up.

Make sense?

Originally posted by Shi
akash is right..imo it is just a more organised way of seperating things within a site.


ahh yes, organization is a good thing. i didn't think of that -


thanks
indera

Originally posted by tribby
The reason why it's smart to use a subdomain for a forum or helpdesk, etc, is that a subdomain can point to an IP on another server.

So if hostingcompany.com goes down and they happen to host their helpdesk on a more stable server, then helpdesk.hostingcompany.com can remain up.

Make sense?

this makes a lot of sense. i will be setting up a subdomain for my forum.

thank you so much.
indera

Originally posted by tribby
The reason why it's smart to use a subdomain for a forum or helpdesk, etc, is that a subdomain can point to an IP on another server.

So if hostingcompany.com goes down and they happen to host their helpdesk on a more stable server, then helpdesk.hostingcompany.com can remain up.

Make sense?
:agree:

I just want to say that most hosting companies are NOT using CPanel, but they are probably using a control panel.

Originally posted by bitserve
I just want to say that most hosting companies are NOT using CPanel, but they are probably using a control panel.

i disagree with both ! ;)

IMO
The main benefit is that it gives your site that 'advanced' look.
Also, sometimes you may want to host a part of your website (ie forum.yoursite.com) that requires more resources on another box.

You should remember when setting up a site that will use subdomains that to an extent some search engines will view each subdomain as a different site. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this, and you should weigh them carefully if you're planning to implement this kind of design -- and if search engine positioning is important to you.