Subdomains and Search Engines

Great article on Subdomains and Search Engines from Nov. 2005 by Vodabot from Vodahost. Also read an article from May 2005 talking about the downsides of using subdomains.

On another article I read the generally considered limit for pages in a subfolder is 65,000 – I have been burned before with security flaws in some software platforms and would like to seperate some of them with subdomains. Having also been burned in the past with SEO practices that were too aggressive; it leaves me in a quandry. Is it ok to seperate to subdomains simply to isolate different software platforms. Everytime I come to a conclusion, I seem to read a discussion that supports the opposite of where I am at the time.

If sticking to the golden rule of doing what’s best for users, then subdomains is the right answer for me. But the real answer is what do the search engines think is best for my users – that’s the slippery slope.

Jury is still out, but check out the article – Lots of good info in there.

GS nDA・Be・YA! 1.1　リリース！！

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Integrating WordPress Into an Existing Website

You’ve installed wordpress into a subdirectory but want to call some of it’s posts and content into your existing root index page. Here’s a tutorial on how to do it with several different layout options: Visit WordPress PHP Include Tutorial. I think this is a good alternative for those that want to use WordPress as a CMS.

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I have wasted a lot of time looking into CMS management systems to work for existing communities and ecommerce. It’s very frustrating. Read here why I’ve discounted the other contenders and gone with WordPress as a CMS:
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DRUPAL
I’ve installed it and spent a couple hours with it. It doesn’t matter to me how it works because I cannot find a SINGLE good looking drupal template on the web. The only good site I’ve seen is the The Onion website which is highly customized; more than the rest of us are able to do. Hardly something the average Joe would be able to put together. Final word: Drupal is so ugly (and yes, I’ve seen the latest new look with the latest release candidate) that all I will do is turn people off from my sites. How many hours did I spend trying to find a SINGLE good looking Drupal site from a template? At least five hours.
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JOOMLA
Looks awesome, but I don’t trust how new the platform is. I got really messed up when I went with Mambo platforms years ago – I was talked into it by one of my techs at the time and didn’t know enough about it. Search right now on the web for Mambo support and sites are drying up. If you’re new to investing time in software platforms then you won’t care, but for us that HAVE been left high and dry, it’s a mistake we don’t want to make again. So Joomla: I love you, you are hot, you look great, but the dev team hasn’t weathered enough storms yet. I’m waiting.
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MAMBO
Deprecated. Joomla, which left Mambo, is doing a great job. Sorry Mambo.
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B2Evolution
I’ve already got communities built around phpbb. I think it’s too confusing to have multiple logins, and I don’t see that B2evolution is bringing much to my table that I can’t get with phpbb, WordPress and OSCommerce. If I was starting from scratch. B2evolution might be a better way to go.
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WPMU
ARRGGGGGGGGHHHH! SO aggravating! I got WPMU installed and worked fine with wildcard subdomains, but then decided I wanted to use subfolders (for SEO related reasons and the fact that my individual WPMU user groups would be fairly limited). Then I had about a dozen users beta test the system. Know what I noticed? No one spent much time on it. At most I had one user type one test post. I kept tweaking it with info to encourage beta testers to post, but it didn’t happen. So I spent several hours hunting for other successful WPMU hubs. Except for the few that are heralded as referrals, I mostly saw websites with abandonded installs that were full of spam.
WPMU – Three Main Problems
1) Regulating signup – I want my exisitng userdatabase to only have access, but haven’t seen a good bridge yet. The other option is to delete the signup page and do it by hand, which at one point was my game plan. But then I got one too many support emails from my existing users, and realized I would forever be approving blogs by hand – not very effective; especially if they aren’t going to be active contributors, which was my experience with my beta-testers.
2) WPMU Comment Spam – Akismet works great, but you only have it for your own admin account. Each user must open their own account. Are they all going to do that? I doubt it – and when they do go to wordpress.com, why wouldn’t they just blog over there instead of on my network? So I looked into buying an Akismet license for each network – I was surprised to see it cost $5 per month per blog. That’s pretty steep for me; I anticipate an easy 200Â hundred users in the first month on networks that already do not make a profit. Bing – I’m another $1,000.00 a month in the hole. I would have been more apt to buy a license that let me grow with my users activity – a license based on post count. Maybe that’s a future idea Akismet can use.
3) WPMU Home Page – I would guess I’m like you if you’re reading this. I’m a “code jockey” who’s comfortable in HTML, can do MYSQL if I had PHPMYADMIN or my SSH notes in front of me, but I’m strictly a cut and paster when it comes to PHP. The Home Page was absolutely ridiculous for me to customize. I am not joking I spent at least 20 hours on it. I scoured the web and found several posts on WPMU forums where members were asking how to customize the home page, and the general response seemed to be “you should know how to do it”. I give the WPMU forums medium marks in responsiveness to newbie questions like these. They ARE important questions, for every one asking there’s a thousand more like me wondering the same thing. Now I’ve also gotten a lot of friendly support on the WPMU forums, so my suggestion would be to get more activity on the WPMU forums, and fully answer those questions, don’t leave them hanging.
WPMU – Final vote: It is released as stable, but all the support and installs I see for WPMU act as if it’s still a Release Candidate. My current gameplan is to use a single CMS install of WP and authorize users to be authors and contributors, which also helps the CMS and Portal vibe I want out of it.
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Another consideration – When I’m designing a site I have a tendency to want what’s flashy and cool. But as a web USER I just want the information fast. When I’m looking for something I just hate it to wade through a site that’s overloaded with gimmicks (I’ll avoid the Flash sermon here). Previously I was very involved in SEO. There was a lot of money to be made, but it wasn’t very fun at all (and I lost my a**, thanks a lot Google). This time around I’m enjoying the emerging “Web 2.0”, it’s simplicity and focus on content.
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So I go with WordPress. Another reason I like WordPress: I put WordPress on my personal website here in January 2006 just to have a little place to play. I had no SEO concerns, no marketing, no sales – just a place to, dare I say….BLOG. While I’ve been scrambling with other software platforms on my servers, my little WordPress site has slowly grown into a valuable resource center for certain niche interests. I like that. It’s clean, it’s simple. Thank you WordPress.