Tell me more ×
Answers OnStartups is a question and answer site for entrepreneurs looking to start or run a new business. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

I'm building a myspace-like site for users and was wondering which method I should go with. I'm familiar with the SEO and technical aspects of a subdomain as opposed to a subdirectory setup. I'm basically wondering if users find username.mydomain.com/ for their profile page more attractive than mydomain.com/username. This would be a paysite, so I am trying to think of what's most attractive for users.

Any thoughts on this? If you want to remind me of the SEO/technical differences too, I'm all ears. :)

Thank YOU!

share|improve this question

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

For me, personally, it depends on whether there's one page or multiple pages. If it's just a single profile page, mydomain.com/username. If there are multiple pages, though, such as a blog and bio or bio and contribution statistics, I decidedly prefer username.mydomain.com unless there are non-user subdomains (e.g. meta.mydomain.com, guest.mydomain.com).

[Note: I'm giving you my take because I think I'm fairly representative, but I haven't performed market research to back up that conviction.]

share|improve this answer
Perfect! Thank you. :) – Mike Jan 12 '10 at 10:24
up vote 2 down vote

I can tell you from a performance standpoint, using subdomains is slower just because the dns lookup takes longer, since myname.yousite.com is not the same dns lookup as secondname.yoursite.com This is as opposed to if you only had yoursite.com, that lookup can be cached and would be faster. However I am no expert in dns so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

One great reason to use subdomains is if you ever want to use domain mapping. That is if you ever want to allow your users to map domain names to their profiles. So rather than go to user.yoursite.com/coolpage, a user can map his domain to work like so : customdomain.com/coolpage which would work seamlessly on both ends. (which is very cool)

If you have no intention to offer custom domains, my advice would be to use yoursite.com/user because its easier to implement and because depending on your user demographic, not all people are accustomed to omitting "www" and entering a subdomain to access websites - it's just unatural.

share|improve this answer
Thanks! I am actually planning on eventually offering custom domains. To my understanding, the only way to do this is to use a reverse proxy. If you have any insight on this, I'm open. I've done a fair amount of research on this though and I think it's a reverse proxy. Anywho, thank you! – Mike Jan 12 '10 at 10:26
@Mike - I am not familiar with reverse proxy, but seeing how it's on the web server level its probably faster than what I do: I set my virtual host to a catch-all default so any domain pointing to my box runs my app. You can also wildcard the subdomain. My app parses the server_request_uri and loads up the appropriate user. 1) has "mydomain" in the uri, looks for username. 2) no "mydomain" = custom_domain, fetch the user with this recorded custom domain. Just make sure domains are pointing to your box via the A/CNAME records. Simple once you get the hang of it. – apsurd Jan 13 '10 at 9:15
up vote 2 down vote

Technically, If you allow user content on their pages
subdomain.yoursite.com is easier to isolate for security purposes.
Cookies do not (so security token) span other users sites.

share|improve this answer
Good point. Just to be clear, you will have the OPTION of compartmentalizing cookies or sharing them between your users' sites. – Joe Jan 12 '10 at 17:49

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.