• Section: Increase Traffic - Category: Domain Name
• Written by Stephen Brennan

It's surprising, at least to me, the amount of Affiliates whoaren't aware of the value and flexibility that the 'sub-domain'can give their promotional website activities. Set up in theright way, a single domain through a host who includes multiple'sub-domains' in their hosting package can fill ALL the onlineneeds of even the busiest and most diversified Affiliate.

Firstly, for those who need to know, a 'sub-domain' is simply aseparate, individual web folder, which can be attached to a'main' domain and treated in all respects as a separate entityonline. It is similar to a 'sub-web', which most hostingfacilities include except that it is, in it's own right, treatedas a separate domain by the SEs rather than a sub-folder under adomain.

The way in which they are represented online as URLs is asfollows:

For instance, if you have a domain name, 'domain.com' and youadd a sub-domain named 'bubble', the URL to that particular'website' (which is what each sub-domain amounts

to, a separatewebsite) will be 'bubble.domain.com'. No doubt, many have seenthese types of URLs online and in promo emails etc. The 'dot'between the sub-domain and main domain is not to be confusedwith the 'dash' that can be used as part of a main domain. Forinstance, 'bubble-domain.com' would need to be registered andpropagated in it's own right whereas, sub-domains can be createdunder a main domain in a matter of seconds, with their own FTPpassword, image, private and cgi-bin folders etc.

What makes them so valuable a tool, if it's not so obviousalready, is that an Affiliate can create a separate website fortotally unrelated products or services, fill each website withthe necessary pages of content, links and facilities etc andpromote each to the Search Engines and other directories,virtually as if it were a different main domain. As I've said,the SEs treat each sub-domain as a separate entity andcategorize them as such. A very handy ability when it comes toAffiliate programs that supply a website or webpage for theirAffiliates to use and promote. In such a case, you can basicallymake that page or site your very own in every respect,optimizing for SEs and presenting it how ever you please(provided no agreements are broken).

Obviously, having a 'generic' main domain name is essential togetting the best out of this cost, time and trouble savingmethod of creating multiple websites. If you have a main domainname 'pillshop.net' (perhaps your initial Affiliate endeavorinvolved promoting this type of product) it is really only goingto be useful for the one type of product or service.Alternatively, something more generic like 'online-plus.biz' isgoing to be useful for promoting almost anything because it hasno specific meaning. For instance, in the case of promoting aSingles Dating Affiliate program, something like'singles.online-plus.biz' would work as well as'pills.online-plus.biz' or even 'dogs.online-plus.biz'. However,'singles.pillshop.net' just doesn't work, does it? (Although, Ihave seen some pretty weird URLs around!)

The only problem you will be presented with, concerns thetraffic ranking facility Alexa. Alexa will read all sub-domainsas their parent 'main domain', so the traffic ranking for eachwebsite will be the same, as will all the other Alexainformation. However, this isn't such a great problem when youconsider that the total traffic indicated for each website willactually be the total for ALL of them. In my opinion, not somuch of a problem, at all.

So, for the Affiliate at least, choosing the right type ofdomain name and a hosting facility that includes multiplesub-domains in their package is very important, especially ifthere's any possibility that you're going to be venturing intopromoting unrelated products and services. The first hostingfacility I was involved with a few years ago, charged $10 tocreate each sub-domain. The one I've been with for the lastcouple of years, allows unlimited free sub-domains (contact meat one of my websites if you want to know who

< Prev Article		Next Article >