Forum Moderators: open
(e.g. www.domainexample.sub.com/filename)
Thanks
[edited by: agerhart at 7:54 pm (utc) on Oct. 15, 2002]
[edit reason] removed website URL [/edit]
nope, but no advantages either in this respect.
domainexample.com/the_sub_directory/and_page.html
compared to: yourdomain.com
?
[edited by: agerhart at 7:53 pm (utc) on Oct. 15, 2002]
[edit reason] removed website URL [/edit]
This depends on;
what your content is
how much content you have
what entry points you want
how much management effort you are willing to expend
Used wrongly you can;
confuse your customers
look like spam to se's
waste huge amounts of time
Disadvantages of:Disadvantages of:
domainexample.com/the_sub_directory/and_page.html
compared to: yourdomain.com
?
my reference was to:
domainexample.sub.com/filename or
domainexample.com/sub/filename
[edited by: agerhart at 7:54 pm (utc) on Oct. 15, 2002]
[edit reason] removed website URL [/edit]
Solely because if she changed ISP she would lose the domain name?
Or are there other reasons?
I am assuming that this is not the greatest or end-all vacations rentals, hence fore, what you are offering is already readily available in that area. Once the time slots are rented for the season, there is no more reason to direct people to it. So your work is only short term.
But for the period of time it is rentable, you are competing with other sites that have more than one rental, like lists of rentals. Trying to get a few pages on a rental unit to be competetive is very difficult especially if you look at the comeptetion for that industry.
Withour their own domain name, they cannot be listed in directories like Yahoo and even Google says only to submit the main site. In this case it would be RR.
Hope that helps.
I can see several sites in the Open Directory and Yahoo which don't have their own domain name so unless things have changed she should be OK with that (?)
And Google deep crawls for sure so I don't think there would be a problem there, so long as the page is well-linked.
If you are saying that there is no point in promoting a personal vacation rental website - nonsense!
We do vacation rentals ourselves and we have our own website. The fact that it is so competitive in Hawaii means that one needs to use absolutely EVERY means of advertising available (including getting to the top of the search engines!). We just got to #1 for our most important keyword phrase on Google and it is well worth the work.
We are still not FULLY booked, however and I don't think anyone is ever 100% booked in this industry, especially in off peak times. And even if one were fully booked say, for the winter, people would still be searching for the spring and summer and NEXT winter! So continuous effort is needed just like with any other business.
The top 2 SERPS for our most competitive keyword phrases are dominated by 'agency sites' it's true but I have still managed to get our personal site to #1 anyway so I don't see why I shouldn't get other peoples personal sites at least onto the first page for their most important keywords (so long as they build up their link popularity).
I am wondering whether to advise her to get her own domain name and pay for hosting but so far I haven't heard any really compelling reason to give her, apart from losing her subdomain name if she leaves her ISP. But to be honest, I can't see any reason why she would leave RoadRunner (it's the best on the islands).
ANY OTHER COMPELLING REASONS?
Thanks!
Thats why it's difficult to advise someone because of the limited knowledge for every application.
Good Luck.
I do appreciate your input - it's helping me get clearer - sorry if I got a bit indignant!
Of course, there is also the issue of potenital customers not being able to remember the domain name. We had that problem before we got our own domain name - having to spell out a long domain name over the phone (and trying to explain to people what a tilde was!).
ANY OTHER COMPELLING REASONS?
In answer to your question, one word says it all...
Professionalism
I can see several sites in the Open Directory and Yahoo which don't have their own domain name
Sure... and the vast majority of them are in non-commercial categories.
Search the business areas of those directories and you'll find that the vast majority of the sites listed are not hosted on free servers without their own domain name.
so unless things have changed she should be OK with that (?)
Things have changed enormously over the last few years.
Many of the sites that are listed in Yahoo and DMOZ have been there for years.
Internet users have become far more savvy and a business site that lacks it's own domain name is perceived as unprofessional in the marketplace by both customers and other webmasters.
Go and check Yahoo's new additions for the week and tell me how many of the sites added to the Shopping and Business category are hosted for free without a unique domain name.
Precious few, if any, I can assure you.
You asked for a compelling reason... here's the biggest:
If you are trying to help promote that site, gaining inbound links is going to be your most important task.
Getting professional webmasters and directory editors to link to a commercial site on a free server without it's own domain name is going to make your most important task much more difficult.
In gaining links, the single criteria you're being judged on is how the site is perceived.
If you want to get more returns on the effort you'll be investing... encourage her to show the world that she's serious about her business and drop a few bucks on a domain name and inexpensive hosting plan.
[edited by: Dante_Maure at 3:53 pm (utc) on Oct. 16, 2002]
Dante_Maure: I WAS searching the business section! It's surprising how many vacation rentals go the cheap route.
However, I think you have a very good point about professionalism and I will encourage the client to get her own domain name before submitting.
Perspective is the everything and professionalism is not that far behind.
[edited by: fathom at 9:36 pm (utc) on Oct. 16, 2002]
Sounds like threads pretty well been settled, but I'd like to clarify my previous post. If someone has a free page, and you can bring some traffic to that page, more power to you. Not a waste of time. The next step to the domain and paid host simply has much more potential.
