: Multiple subsites each with their own subdomain vs one larger site with categories? I'm starting a site that is similar to a wiki. The site will have many different unrelated categories, eg:

@Cooney921

What nir suggested re: single domains or .com/othersite, plus Domain Access drupal.org/project/domain so that you can manage/maintain the site more easily (multisite works if you really do want seperate databases which has its own advantage).

Independent domains are going to be crucial for getting good results with SEO but will definately have a specific impact on the communities who use the site and it will lead to added complexity.

Also, I'd like to mention that subdomains are a pain for usability. Many people have enough trouble remembering second level domains, so third level domains are just impossible to deal with for a large portion of users.

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@Turnbaugh106

I'm thinking option 2 has the benefit that users interested in a topic will feel like they have a site dedicated to their interest.


It's true, but having different websites for each topic would split your community [if you want have one].

Putting everything together would allow users to "accidentally" go in a topic he likes, even it wasn't exactly what he was looking for.

Maybe a good idea would kepp everything on a main site and, when a specific topic has got enough size, split it from the rest.

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@Mendez628

If you want it to "feel like" one site go with folders (example.com/tech), this will make promoting the site easier (both for SEO and for promoting to people) because you focus all your promotion activities on one simpler domain name.

If you want it to be a network of sites go with completely different domain (example: stackoverflow.com, serverfault.com, superuser.com) this will let you separate the communities and differentiate the sites in ways that make sense.

I wouldn't go with subdomains because they are an half-way solution with most of the disadvantages of both approaches but without most of the benefits.

I would only use subdomains when I have different accounts on same system (example blogspot.com)

When starting up something new I would go with the single domain approach, I need any help I can get getting things off the ground and focusing all the "reputation" on a single domain can help get more visitors.

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@Ogunnowo487

If you are using subdomain on your site then it helps you to decrease site loading time since your site contents can be downloaded at client side in parallel.

It also helps to categories your site contents logically in visitors' view.
For example webmaster.stackexchange.com

People can understand where are they, by looking its first word only.

Moreover it helps to control url length.

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@Bryan171

Sticking with one domain can help all the websites increase in page rank. This is why most websites stick with example.com/tech instead of tech.example.com

example: www.apple.com/iphone/ and www.nytimes.com/pages/health/
Also, marketing one domain can be helpful. Versus trying to push different domains around.

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