Wordpress - Subdomains or new domains and fresh installs?

16 replies
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Hello,

The more I read, the more questions I have.....

I am wrapping my head around the use of Wordpress for Internet Marking and affilate marketing. I believe that if you can create a solid site that makes a few quid a day and then replicate it, your efforts will continue to pay off.

My questions revolves around the use of one main domain and subdomains versus totally separate domains and therefore separate WP installs. What is a preferable way to set up pages to monetize with affiliate links (i.e. Amazon) and/or adsense?

Is there drawback to either I should be aware of? I am totally new to IM and WP and would appreciate any direction with this.

Many thanks!

-Dave
#domains #fresh #installs #subdomains #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author clou
    Hi Dave,
    It better to set up Wordpress MU. You just install Wordpress once because it saves you server space and effort. You can put both amazon ans adsense on your domains and subdomains.
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    • Profile picture of the author wisedave
      Originally Posted by clou View Post

      Hi Dave,
      It better to set up Wordpress MU. You just install Wordpress once because it saves you server space and effort. You can put both amazon ans adsense on your domains and subdomains.
      Thanks for the quick reply.....but what is MU?

      Cheers,


      Dave
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      • Profile picture of the author azmanar
        Hi,

        WP Multisite is a good choice for holding a few domains. But if you have many visitors to each domain, it would take a toll on the speed of access to your posts and pages. Subsequently, will affect your Google ranking because speed of access counts. Remember that WP is DB driven.

        1 WP installation itself has a very small footprint. So space is never an issue. Even if you have 3 separate WP installations, it will not be big.

        For efficiency, speed and plugins management, separate WP installations would be better in a single host. However, this would be subjected also on how busy the shared hosting is.

        So if you have a main domain and 3 other subdomains, there would never be an issue with ranking, SE indexing and SERP results. But, if you bought another domain pointing to the subdomain, Google would ignore that redirect domain. It just doesn't like it.

        Having all your domain and subdomains in 1 host is a bit risky though, if your CPANEL got hijacked. You would lose everything, especially if you don't back-up the DBs and customizations.

        The best is having separate domains in separate hosts. Better still, go for VPS hosting where you can host as many domains as you like and the speed of access is not throttled by too many busy neighbours.

        Some people even go to the extend of hosting their domains and WP in separate hosting providers just to get the advantage of separate IP numbers.
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  • Profile picture of the author BusyBonline
    I'm fairly new too and had close to the same question. Right now I have a hosting plan that allows for unlimited domains, etc.. I currently have one domain as the default but want to have several niche sites. Is it not a good idea to create subdomains of the default? Example below:

    health.defaultdomain.com
    fitness.defaultdomain.com
    and so on...

    Or is it better to have individual domain names per niche? Hopefully all that made sense!

    Thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Originally Posted by BusyBonline View Post

      Example below:

      health.defaultdomain.com
      fitness.defaultdomain.com
      and so on...

      Or is it better to have individual domain names per niche? Hopefully all that made sense!

      Thanks!
      There are some who still worry about riding the wave of the keyword dense domain. It really boils down to long term plans with a niche I think.

      If I was planning to sell and flip a site then it definitely needs it's own domain.

      If you are looking for type in traffic and something easy to remember, then you want to get a separate domain.

      If you have a bunch of your own products and are working up your brand, then subdomains may be all you need.
      Signature

      "May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"

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      • Profile picture of the author BusyBonline
        Originally Posted by Jill Carpenter View Post

        There are some who still worry about riding the wave of the keyword dense domain. It really boils down to long term plans with a niche I think.

        If I was planning to sell and flip a site then it definitely needs it's own domain.

        If you are looking for type in traffic and something easy to remember, then you want to get a separate domain.

        If you have a bunch of your own products and are working up your brand, then subdomains may be all you need.
        Thanks, that helps a lot!
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  • Profile picture of the author madmmd
    buy a domain and setup a wordpress website.. try to monetize it first and then move on to second domain.. Installing many wordpress instances on different subdomains wont work good.. subdomains are difficult to rank than domains obviously.. so you should try to have a new domain and build a new website..
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    • Profile picture of the author BusyBonline
      Originally Posted by madmmd View Post

      buy a domain and setup a wordpress website.. try to monetize it first and then move on to second domain.. Installing many wordpress instances on different subdomains wont work good.. subdomains are difficult to rank than domains obviously.. so you should try to have a new domain and build a new website..
      So if I had 20 niche sites, I'd have 20 individual domain names under 20 individual hosting plans is how I understand it.
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      • Profile picture of the author wisedave
        Hey Cheif,

        I am no expert....and I think we are in the same boat here but I believe your would not need twenty different hosting plans. You can get plans where you can host many domains from the same account.

        Like I said...I think we are in the same boat here trying to figure out the basics.

        Good luck...I am monitoring this thread.

        Cheers,

        Dave
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  • Profile picture of the author BusyBonline
    Yeah, you're right...I confused "addon-domains" with "sub-domains"
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    • Profile picture of the author magiclouie
      Originally Posted by BusyBonline View Post

      Yeah, you're right...I confused "addon-domains" with "sub-domains"
      Add-On Domain
      • You have two domains mysite.com and my-other-site.com.
        You want the two domains to be totally separate/independent websites.
        In order to have additional add-on domains you need to purchase them from a registry.

      Sub domain
      • Lets say your domain is mysite.com.
        You install a Message Board and put in in a directory called mysite.com/board/.
        You can turn the directory board into a sub-domain by adding it as a sub-domain from your Control Panel.
        Now you can access your Message board as either mysite.com/board OR board.mysite.com
        This costs you nothing and is free.
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  • Profile picture of the author Monumento
    Yeah I did this the other day when I set up my new website. I did'nt realise you had to install wordpress again and set up a new database. Its more hassle but its fairly simple and it doesn't take long. Just another obstacle in the Internet Marketing world
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  • Profile picture of the author Shannon Herod
    Originally Posted by wisedave View Post

    Hello,

    The more I read, the more questions I have.....

    I am wrapping my head around the use of Wordpress for Internet Marking and affilate marketing. I believe that if you can create a solid site that makes a few quid a day and then replicate it, your efforts will continue to pay off.

    My questions revolves around the use of one main domain and subdomains versus totally separate domains and therefore separate WP installs. What is a preferable way to set up pages to monetize with affiliate links (i.e. Amazon) and/or adsense?

    Is there drawback to either I should be aware of? I am totally new to IM and WP and would appreciate any direction with this.

    Many thanks!

    -Dave
    Hey Dave,

    It really depends on which model you are trying to use.

    If you are trying to target a specific product name and only promoting one product on that domain name then you should use just a single domain.

    However, if you are trying to build an "authority" site with multiple products on the same domain then you would use a more general domain.

    However, you would not need to install new blogs on subdomains for each product.

    A better strategy would be to get a general domain name. I.e. if you are promoting in the weight loss niche you get a generalized domain name like bestweightlossblog.com

    Then, as you build reviews around new products you would build those reviews on pages. Not subdomains.

    Then, as you build your site Google will start to recognize that you are building a site around a general theme and start looking at your site as more of a seasoned authority site.

    The main point here is that if you have a weight loss domain you should only promote products about weight loss and supporting niches on that blog.

    For instance, it is bad to have a general domain promoting a broad spectrum of products. If you look at the "panda" update from Google a lot of the article directories worth it because they covered such a broad spectrum of niches.

    However smaller authority sites that were highly focused on one niche seen increases in their rankings.

    Hopefully that helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author MarkJones
    It all depends on what the aim of setting up another WP install is.. If you are wanting to rank on a keyword you then need to set up a new WP install on an exact match domain name. Sub domains don't rank as well as an exact match domain.

    Work out what you aim is.. then go from there
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  • Profile picture of the author Channing
    Banned
    I would go ahead and invest in individual domains for each site if you can afford to do that. If it's a money issue, then go with sub domains, but individual domains are ALWAYS better, not just for SEO but for future sales of those websites. You will likely want to dump a few of those sites on down the road, and if it has some traffic, age and some sales, you will get a nice ROI by selling those sites on Flippa. But with sub domains, you are stuck really.
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  • Profile picture of the author HigherPrThanGod
    Install Wordpress and enable Wordpress MU.

    I have a video tutorial I made on setting it up, but I can't say anymore without being accused of spam.

    But I run WordPress MU with about 30 and then another with 50 blogs. Some get several hundred Google searches a day. But they aint choking.

    The key is - you only setup and manage your themes and plugins once and from one admin area. But when you go to add a new domain you don't have to continuously upload the same themes and/or plugins every time thus it speeds up the setting up of new domains tremendously.

    Use that in combination with Artisteer and you can put up good sites ridiculously quick.
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