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About Us 2007 is when I began creating niche stores. Many kind and giving people shared their knowledge with me, making it easier to improve my sites. I have gathered much of what I've learned and put it here, on this site, as a way of giving back. It is my hope that this site will help you improve your niche stores and sites, too. ~ Rochelle
Why I No Longer Use Subdomains
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Rochelle in When I first got started with Build A Niche Stores (BANS) I created several stores that were done using subdomains. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, a subdomain is when a new URL is created using a primary URL. For example, let’s say the main your URL is www.MyDomain.com and you want to create a site called Site One. You can use your hosting account’s cPanel to create a subdomain to the primary ULR that will look like www.SiteOne.MyDomain.com.
Typically, subdomains are used to save money because you can create many sites from a single URL. This was true in my case. However, I have since changed my mind about using subdomains.
Some downfalls to using subdomains include:
- People can easily find your other subdomains – All someone needs to do to find any other subdomains you created for a specific URL is to type the primary URL (aka MyDomain.com) into a search engine and see what comes up. If you want to keep your niche stores to yourself then you won’t want to use subdomains.
- You can’t sell your site unless you sell all subdomains attached to primary URL – You may not want to sell your site right now but you never know about later. Perhaps you will need the money. Or, perhaps your site has been so successful that you are able to get a pretty penny for it. If your site is built on a subdomain then you have to sell the primary URL, and all additional subdomains attached to it, in order to sell a single niche store.
- You might later want to put the niche store on its own URL and will have to transfer it to the new URL, which will be a hassle to do.
My only reason for creating sites on subdomains was to save money. I wasn’t looking at the big picture. Purchasing domain names at GoDaddy costs $6.95 (with a coupon) for one year. It doesn’t take many affiliate sales to make back that investment. Now, every BANS site I create is made on its own URL.
My next post will be about how to move your subdomain site to its own URL, as I am in the process of doing just that.
Rochelle
18 Responses to “Why I No Longer Use Subdomains”
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Would it not be sub-domains you meant to say instead of addon domains?
Doh! Yes, that’s what I mean. I’ll correct that now…
Let’s say your addon domain has a PR3 rating, will the PR rating follow over to the new domain site?
What an excellent question! I honestly don’t know but will soon find out. The site I am moving to a new URL is a PR3 site.
Perhaps someone else knows the answer to this and will share. Otherwise, I’ll post what happens with my site (I may need a reminder or two…).
Rochelle
Wouldn’t moving the site mean, that you are starting from scratch? As far as backlinks and such? I guess I’ll just wait for your next post, when you explain how you are doing it?
It would definitely be ok to put a related blog on that BANS domain as a subdomain, right? That’s what I’ve done with one of my stores. Because, if I ever decide to sell it. The BANS and the related blog would would be sold together. Not too long ago, I came up with that idea myself, about creating different BANS stores on the same domain. Now that I’ve read your post, I’m glad I didn’t.
Ruthies last blog post..My EPN Earnings Month to Date
No, you won’t be starting from scratch, and yes, I’ve addressed this in the post about moving the site (a process I’m currently undertaking – fun!).
What you will do after you’ve moved the site is create 301 Redirects for every page of your site. A long and tedious process, but one that will make sure any links that point to your old site will send visitors to your new one.
As to a blog, do you mean you want to add the blog to its own URL (which you would be doing if you add it to a subdomain, and doing this would mean it has no connection to the BANS site), or add it to a subfolder (where the blog and store will point to each other)? You can do both, but what I suspect you want to do is add it to a subfolder.
it is absolutely ok to add a blog to a BANS site. I am in the process of doing that (I’ll soon write about) and have added one both to a subfolder and to the main URL with BANS added to a subfolder. More on that soon.
Interesting. Will you need to change hosting plans at Hostgator to do that?
Hi Rochelle
As far as I know, the best chance you have of getting PR to follow is through a 301 redirect. You’ll have to Google how to do this because I am clueless at that point.
Hi Rochelle
I think your argument is basically correct on subdomains.
For mine, if you’re going to use the same domain it is better to use a folder than a subdomain. That way, the newly created store benefits from the domain trust that has already been built. For example, my domain jonksbargains.com has had some fairly heavy SEO done on it and now ranks well on Google.com.au for many terms pretty much instantly when they go live on a new page.
I’ve only just started making BANS stores 2 days ago so am very new to this, but I’m hoping my strategy will also be productive.
I don’t think you will need to change hosting plans. I believe that every plan HostGator offers allows you to have addon domains. But I’m not certain you are asking about the addon aspect of this process. This might make more sense to you after reading how to make this move.
Jonk,
It’s good to hear that PR will likely follow. You shall be clueless no more, though on how to do a 301 Redirect because I have written about this
I’ve included instructions for creating 301 Redirects in the instructions I wrote for moving from a subdomain to a new URL.
Rochelle
Rochelle,
I ready your latest how-to post on moving your site. Frankly, I think I’d rather pull out my own teeth!
I’m a little confused still on the sub-domain/add-on domain issue. When I type in my main domain into the Google box, all I get are links related to that domain. When I type in one of my add-on domains, the url is http://www.SiteOne.com and all I get are links related to http://www.SiteOne.com. So I don’t see how anyone can see all my other domains by typing in just the url.
Were yours set up differently so that the urls were http://www.SiteOne.MyDomain.com? If so, I can see why you’d want to change that.
I don’t know how my add-on domains would be affected if I wanted to sell one, but I’m a ways away from that yet.
Hi Rochelle – I’ve been enjoying your blog and learning a ton! Question (possibly dumb) about the subdomain thing: As you know, when you add an Add-On Domain at Hostgator, it puts it in a subfolder of your main site, which results in what’s essentially a subdomain (secondstore.firststore.com), even though I also have individual domain names that point to each of these add-ons.
Is my situation different from what you’re talking about? If I wanted to sell one of my “add-ons” later, would I have a problem? Thanks for your insight!
You may be right that pulling teeth would be more fun that doing hundreds of 301 Redirects (I’m currently dragging my feet on this particular activity…).
Subdomains and addon domains confuse me, too. An addon domain is adding a new domain to your hosting account. It has nothing to do with any other domain you have, except that it shares your hosting account neighborhood.
Subdomains are created when you create a new URL from a primary URL. They are connected, directly, to the primary URL, though not to any addon domains.
Let’s say you have many subdomains that are all indexed in search engines:, http://www.siteone.mydomain.com, http://www.sitetwo.mydomain.com, http://www.sitethree.mydomain.com, and so on. If you enter just ‘mydomain.com’ into a search engine you will see all the subdomains attached to that URL that are indexed. So that is how people wanting to see more of your sites would be able to find your subdomain sites.
Addon domains would not be affected by selling a single URL, because they aren’t related to each other. But subdomains are affected because if you want to sell niche store located at http://www.siteone.mydomain.com then you would have to sell the URL ‘mydomain.com.’ All subdomains that have been added to that URL will be no longer be yours once you sell that URL. Unless you move them to their own URLs, as I am doing (though I’m not doing it so I can sell it).
I hope this helps clarify things.
Rochelle
This isn’t a dumb question at all! It actually shows how much you are paying attention to all this stuff.
I’m not an expert on this stuff but I believe that hosting companies, such as HostGator, show addon domains as subdomains within your cPanel as a way of organizing your URLs. This does not turn an addon into a subdomain. If you were to sell an addon domain that looks like a subdomain in your account (or move the URL to a different hosting account) you would just remove it from the account. It wouldn’t affect any of your other addon URLs.
Does this help?
Rochelle
Yes, it does, thanks! I think the way HG does it causes a lot of confusion for newbies. I’m new to BANS but not to hosting and domains, and I still had a little trouble with it! But once you “get it,” it probably works better that way. I don’t have any complaints about them otherwise, so this is small potatoes.
Thanks again for the explanation!
Bunny
Like you, I’ve no complaints with HostGator. They’ve been very reliable and good. I’m finding, though, that I’m liking the new company I’m hosting with even better. The price was amazing so I was worried about the quality but it is as amazing as the price so far. One thing I really like about WebHostingPad is the fact that I can arrange the cPanel however I want. If I create databases a lot (and we sure do with BANS!) then I can move the database options to the top of cPanel’s home page.
This does not mean I will be abandoning HostGator, because I intend to keep both accounts. Just that I like both, but some features of one better.
Rochelle
One advantage to an add on domain that I see is two for the price of one or more if you ad them on… other wise separate domains each have a monthly fee. I would imagine there are long term advantages to separate domains but money is also a factor to consider until you know if your BANS is even going to make any money. If they make no profit no one will be interested in buying them… If they make money you won’t want to sell them. Just a beginner here but if I had money makers I would be keeping them and making duplicates. I think all the BANS I have seen including my own will make money if you can get traffic.
Robert