Looking for advice on expanding my site.

Worker Joined: Dec 23, 2005 Posts: 226 Location: UK

Presently I have a domain I use for football news.

I'm thinking of expanding it to cover news on other subjects.

Three possible options.

1: use folders for different subjects, mydomain/subject
2: use subdomains, subject.mydomain
3: use it as is and incorporate the new subjects

Options are there because of targeting google with specific subjects. I've read that if you use subdomains, Google sees them as separate domains.
This option would need a copy of nuke and a database each and would get expensive. It also causes me confusion over what I would do with mydomain/index

If I use option 3, will it cause problems with search rank do to diversifying the subject matter?

So far my brain is telling me option 2 is the way to go and expand as and when I can afford it.

What do you think?

Sells PC To Pay For Divorce Joined: Posts: 5661

i would go for option 2,but thing is...it happens more and more that subdomains are abused and used for all types of spam.
Nobody knows for real how search engines will respond to that.
another risk you take is is your sub can outrank your root....

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 4:39 am

another sub related Q for you

If I use a subdomain should I block it's folder in the root robot.txt to stop search engines from associating it with the root, or would this block the subdomain?

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 4:46 am

no,you shouldnt put anything in the robot.txt file..
just build it like it is.
but also upload the robot.txt to your sub to.

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:19 am

You can use 1 database for multiple Nuke installations and you wouldn't have the addtional expense.

Never done it myself, but I'm sure there is someone here who could advise you. I'm sure there are many pros and cons!

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:39 am

oh but thats a lot of work,editing,and i will never recommend such a construction...
but everybody is free to do what they want ,or wanna messup... Laughing

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:02 am

Using sub domains in my opinion is the way to go.
You will have more success in targeting your meta data especially if you give yourself a boost by using a sub domain name that targets a keyword.

For obvious reasons, a sub domain that targets one specific thing 'football news' will have more 'relevancy' to 'football' than say a sub domain that had general news.

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:08 am

got to add this...i dont think it would be that much extra work....just change the prefix...from standard nuke to something else...ur call.

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:10 am

but i have a real question here...ive been tryin to install forums under a subdomain....tried it and it doesnt work....is there somethin im doin wrong?
Any advice would be helpfull

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 7:19 am

I did a test subdomain install yesterday using the latest RN,
Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login!

Forums worked ok

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:17 am

actually my apologies...ive been testing this...and i think it has somethin to do with the dns....but i got it workin now

registered · Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6437

I'd consider options 1 and 3, because having more content in one place helps ranking, pagerank and more.

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:03 pm

But wouldnt that affect the relevancy of the content and then ultimately the pagerank in a negative manner?

Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:18 pm

Relevancy of the content: not if the keywords accurately reflect the content. However, there could be a case there if you aren't able to optimize your keywords, titles, etc. by page.

Pagerank: don't think it would affect pagerank negatively. I was thinking more links = better pagerank, and linking to subdomain is different than linking to main domain.