When presenting a website address to people on the Internet, is it smarter to have a main page that presents all of the subdomain websites on it in association with the main site address? Or is it smarter to have a more lengthy site address for each website, with each site presented separately?

I am pondering the creation of a main page associated with the main site address that presents different subdomains as I create them. They are all somewhat relevant to each other: Disability, Veterans, Nurses etc.

Tom.

By subdomains are you reffering to a subdomain like "abc.example.com" or directories like "example.com/abc/" ?

Everything would look like this:

Main domain: www.mainplace.com

Subdomain: www.mainplace.com/Veterans/Veterans.html

Subdomain: www.mainplace.com/Nurses/Nurses.html

Additional pages would look like:

www.mainplace.com/Veterans/VetSubDir/AdditionalInfo.html

www.mainplace.com/Nurses/NurseSubDir/AdditionalInfo.html

One way around these nasty addy's is nice shiny graphics, which I am not very good at. Buttons, Images, etc. Then there are plain ole' underlined links with simple names. Googlebot doesn't seem to care one way or the other, so that's a plus. There is always the, 'three-click rule,' to keep in mind.

A main page would keep Ability Corner up, while allowing me to put up a Nurse page, Veterans page etc. on a main page that pops up when people go to the main website addy. They could then choose which site they wish to view; at least that is my thinking at this point.

Tom.

What you are talking about then is directories - subdomains are like the url of this disability community as above in the address bar with a name before the main domain name - subdomains are treated as new different sites eg. abc.example.com def.example.com and example.com are 3 different websites.

Directories such as example.com/abc/ are all treated as the same website.

Here are a few tips:

a) Plain old links are better than graphics

1/ if its a disability site it's better to keep pictures to a minimum.

2/ Search engines can't read graphics as yet so your link would not be credited as highly as keywords in a text link eg. a link like clickable words like "Veterans chat" tells the search engines (SE) what the page is about rather than "click here" or "www.example.com" It really does make a huge difference to have relevant keywords in links to a page whether they are on your site or another domain.

b) While the 3 click rule was relevant in the past, search engines have evolved to a point where it no longer applies. Also there are ways around having deep pages like example.com/a/b/c/d/page.html

1/ By the use of a site map link on every page "example.com/sitemap.html" A site map lists all the pages on the website like the site map link on the footer of this page.

2/ By the use of "breadcrumbs" like the links on the top menu of this page - Devon Travel

c) Popups will annoy most visitors if not all - a well thought out structured menu system is the only way to go. The way you have laid out your directory structure in your last post is the best option there is. Keep in mind that a visitor can land on any page of your website - they don't just come via the home page. The SE's will list the page most relevant on your site to their query - and thats where your visitor will first land - each page should be able to "stand on its own" and include navigational links to other pages relevant to that page's topic - Every page should include a link to the home page, but a page on "cheese" shouldn't link to a page on "chalk" as it decreases what is known as page relevancy score.

I did an article on do's and don'ts when designing a website not long ago. A lot of it is on optomization but you may find it interesting - here's the link if you want to take a look.

Search Engine Optimization Tips for High Rankings

Thank you, Ian. There is now a text file on my desktop containing every one of the points on search engine and website optimization.

"The road is long..."

When I looked at Ability Corner I saw a great deal to do. The site is less than a year old; it has been visited by 27 nations around the world, including regular hits from the U.S. Government - but it needs MUCH work. The need is there, and I want to create independent sites for both Veterans and Nurses. I kick out for the paid domain on a yearly basis. Subdomains are allowed.

HTML was a small part of my 1990's CIS degree. Most of that degree had to do with programming languages like Pascal, C, C++, and Visual Basic. "M,m,m,mmm...here we go..." CSS wasn't even a part of it. I am teaching myself as I go. January the 28th is the last day with my friend, shall we say? The time is going to present itself, in between writing. A bit here, a bit there...

The Disability Blogosphere has reached the point where there are sufficient numbers of Persons with Disabilities and people associated with them blogging online through RSS feeds to present a wide-variety of information. News sources are available on Disability topics too. Ability Corner is something that is not meant to compete with Disabled World by any means, but I do feel that the more presence persons with disabilities have on the Internet the better. I seriously doubt that Ability Corner will ever have chat rooms, forums or the like; it is meant more for the sharing of information from various sources.

The Veteran's and Nurses sites would follow the same theme - 'Shared Knowledge and Information.'

Thank you so much,

Tom.

Wow!

That optimization list presents some issues... People who visit Ability Corner seem to like those RSS feed widgets, and Ability Corner relies on them, but the list says they can count against me? There is also the matter of my book site, 'Ability Lane,' being presented on a different template.

Articles are definitely going to appear over time. The, 'breadcrumb,' idea is a very good one. Unlike Disabled World, my site does not have a lot to breadcrumb to yet. When I look at the task of inserting hypertext links into existing or future documents in order to link them to other documents or sites I am daunted. How have you managed to do it?

One weekend is just that; there will be more, 'between times,' in the future. I am looking at my last couple of days as a Nursing Assistant. My knees are thanking me, but a part of me is sad in a way. I haven't known anything else for twenty-four years.

I am feeling like an undergrad. Writing is something I enjoy more. My hat is off to your professionalism, Sir.

Tom.

Have you considered using a blog platform such as wordpress? You can have a free subdomain such as yoursite.wordpress.com OR install the script that runs it on your hosting and still use your domain name.

I don't use wordpress myself but know many who do, and there is a huge list of plugins that can auto create linked words in articles, and hundereds of other handy tools etc.

Or do a search for "content manager", there are quite a few good ones that are free as well as ones you can purchase that make managing a bigger site so much easier.

the use of includes for menu's headers, footers etc. means you just update one file and ALL your page menu's or whatever are updated. Do a search for "php includes" and/or "shtml includes" There are ways around using them on html pages but depends on how much server access you web host allows.

There are many ways to make website work a lot easier - you just need to know they exist and be able to choose from a huge range of products. Always look for a demo link and have a play with a few to get an idea of their (content managers) functions.

Oh how I would love to use Wordpress...

I made an attempt at one point; with some disasterous results. What happened is that I ended up with people posting filthy things such as sexualy-explicit, 'Hentai?' animated things in comments. There were links posted to any number of off-topic nonsense and oh my goodness.

The mess left behind left me demoralized, and I just dropped it. Before I even consider making another attempt there will have to be a great deal of research done.

Tom.

Wordpress has come a long way since I last looked! No more issues with people posting comments without having to leave some kind of way of knowing who they are, or multiple, obnoxious comments with links to nonsense. There are themes galore, and it is a writer's dream. Setting it up wasn't all that difficult, and I look forward to using it for some time to come.

Switching Ability Corner over from HTML templates to Wordpress was a snap. There is certain amount of material that I can use from the old site, but it is now setup primarily for writing.

Thank you for the, 'foot,' Ian.

Tom.