Hi All,

I was wondering about something regarding sub-domains and my shopping site. Which is, would adding sub-domains and installing my shopping cart on each sub-domain be beneficial? I was wondering if by adding sub-domains to the 'top level' domain and installing the shopping cart into each sub-domain, and just adding products pertaining to 'that sub-domain', would that make the site faster for visitors, or does that not even pertain to a 'faster loading site'?

P.s: I am also considering sub-domains for organization of the website, which I know is a great idea. I Just wanted to question the above because I have quite a few thousand products, and I haven't tried using sub-domains. I installed the cart on the 'top level' domain, and used categories from the shopping cart, but not sub-domains to be organized.

Your help is Greatly Appreciated!
Thank you!
-Brian

I don't see why using sub-domains is a "great" idea for organisation, maybe you would expand on why you think so. If your shopping cart makes organising that difficult maybe it's time for a new shopping cart.

a few cons of sub-domains;
browsers will add the http:// to www addresses typed in.

lots of users find sub-domains "strange". I use subs for test sites and demos and I often get comments on the "odd" url, So many in fact I now add a www to make it www.sub.domain.tld

sub-domains are treated as seperate sites so you will need to build external links to each sub rather than just to the parent

Originally Posted by chrishirst

lots of users find sub-domains "strange". I use subs for test sites and demos and I often get comments on the "odd" url, So many in fact I now add a www to make it www.sub.domain.tld

Once again I have to agree with chrishirst,

Novice users will find the setup strange, Also if your doing web design for traditional business user with limited web experience. I'd keep to /folder.

It's a bad idea to split any one site across sub domains.
Sub domains are good for keeping related sites together (catalogue.mysite.com, corporate.mysite.com, extranet.mysite.com), or for pointing to different services on a domain (www.mysite.com, ftp.mysite.com, mail.mysite.com etc)