Subdomains vs. Accounts – Case’s Naming Conventions

May 09th, 2005 | Category: Kevin's Stuff
written by: Kevin Adams
We often get requests similar to: "We would like to apply for the URL department.case.edu instead of what we have now, www.case.edu/department". Some assume that this naming structure is somehow better, shorter, or easy to remember. While all of these reasons may or may not apply for your site, Case doesn't use this naming scheme. In fact it's generally not a good idea to do, and here's why... You can tell a lot about a page by looking at the URL. A typical example is protocol://subdomain.domain.com/directory/subdirectory/filename.extension Obviously the first part is the 'protocol' that is being used to get the information. There are a number of them, ftp:// and http:// are probably the most popular. Immediately following the two forward slashes is the 'subdomain' Some people make the mistake of confusing subdomain with 'account'. On Case's network, subdomains are used, but only to differentiate between unique servers. Very early on, in the development of what became the World Wide Web, this naming convention was worked out where you went from the general to the more specific the further to the right you went. When I see a page named for instance, http://www.case.edu/univrel/marcomm, I can tell that it is the main web presence for University Marketing & Communications. It is housed on and served from the 'www' (the main university web server) inside a directory named 'univrel' (University Relations) and the M & C account or directory is a sub account under it (marcomm). The hierarchy and naming convention makes it so much easier to manage. http://marcomm.case.edu is a bit shorter, I'll grant you, but it doesn't accurately reflect WHERE this file resides, who manages it or maintains it, who I should contact for a page edit, etc. All the pages on the 'www' are served from the same computer and when I need to find out info on a particular account, I know I can call or write the server admin for that particular server and find some quick answers. If Marketing & Communications wanted to buy and maintain their own server, then of course the marcomm.case.edu naming structure would be used. I think it is unwise though to run out and buy your own hardware unless you are fully committed to hiring someone responsible and knowledgeable enough to run it. There is talk of Case changing the policy, and allowing an account to take on the characteristics on a subdomain, but I hope they do not ever grant this privilege. In short; if you want to use name.case.edu instead of www.case.edu/name ... get your own server! Hope this helps!
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8 Comments »
  1. There are, of course, a very few arguable exceptions to Kevin's thinking. I must place emphasis on the word 'arguable' because, there is nothing about the exceptions that cannot be overcome within Kevin's perspective. There are certain services on college campuses which adopted web access early enough that it is not surprising to find them on their own server, and thus appearing as their own subdomain. Libraries tend to be on this short list and, at some institutions the library may be the only department on that exception list. This is where the terminology gets a little loose. is it protocol://subdomain.domain.com/ or, protocol://hostname.domain.com/? Certain functions present a very strong argument for being on their own host. In those cases, presenting them in a left-to-right directory structure requires some interesting network and server configuration gymnastics that are not 100% reliable. Nearly 100% but, not all the way there. This is where centrally established practice, policy, and procedure come in. There are very few perfect solutions. The one that works best accounts for all of the technical, marketing, and political issues to the best of the institution.

    Comment by Keith — May 13, 2005 @12:00 pm

  2. Actually I don't see what the argument or excetion is Keith... You write: >There are certain services on college campuses >which adopted web access early enough that it >is not surprising to find them on their own >server, and thus appearing as their own >subdomain. Yes, of course, (that's what my article intends to say) but whether they adopted web access in 1995 or last week, they can still use the hostname.domain.edu convention. I don't see WHEN their web presence went live to be a factor. Just to clarify, yes Case's naming system adopts the hostname.domain.edu stucture. It's not exactly or technically the same as my example of subdomain.domain.edu... although that's possible as well. It's just one way to explain it. On personal webspace that I have for instance, I can have a 'directory' in my main account, (which would be accessed as http://kevinswebspace.com/mycompany/index.htm) it obviously can be set up to respond to http://mycompany.kevinswebspace.com of course you can do that... but I can also set it up to respond to http://mycompany.com and blind out the 'real' hosting account altogether. One popular method of doing this (as I'm sure you've probably done) is to set up a virtual pointer to 'point' to that directory, it involves editing some things with the DNS registry, and... well Keith, that's well outside the scope of this article. I only meant to illustrate WHY in the context of our institution we don't do this, and why it in fact is a bad idea. What I am referring to is the department head or site maintainer who thinks the two (account name and subdomain or hostname) are the same thing. Or those that confuse subdomain, hostname, and account name. And maybe I'm confused, but... Libraries as far as I know is already on their own server, you admitted as much. What I am referring to is accounts that are on the 'www' server, but whose maintainers request a subdomain. Of course it's possible Keith, but I only wrote this article to explain a little about why Case generally doesn't do this, and in fact why it's not a good idea. Someone reading your comments might assume that you have differences with or take exception to something I wrote, but I don't think so. I like to debate, play the devil's advocate, etc as much as anyone, but it sounds like you take exception or are trying to clarify something. Where is the 'exception' to Kevin's thinking that you mention?

    Comment by Kevin — May 13, 2005 @12:40 pm

  3. Kevin, Thanks for your post. People often ask me whether we can get a shorter URL for UCITE than the current one, which is: http://www.case.edu/provost/UCITE/. I tell them something along the lines you mentioned, but it was nice to have it confirmed by someone who knows. But on another question, why is it that the UCITE has to be upper case only. Is case sensitivity for URLs mandatory?

    Comment by Mano Singham — July 28, 2005 @3:01 pm

  4. It's clearly easier to set up conventional directories, not subdomains. Especially if at a later stage you will consider changing site structure - dealing with subdomains will be much more painful.

    Comment by designer t-shirts — October 8, 2006 @11:44 pm

  5. Having sub domains are more convient and search engine friendly.

    Comment by seo blog — August 14, 2007 @9:12 am

  6. Subdomains are more beneficial.

    Comment by seo blog — September 21, 2007 @8:17 pm

  7. From general to specific as you go to the right makes a lot of sense. Now that I think about it, those are always the ones that seem the most clear, giving me the best sense of where I am within the hierarchy.

    Comment by Cy — January 19, 2008 @4:04 pm

  8. Google is preferring Directories more than sub domain.. means abc.com/xyz is more better than xyz.abc.com

    Comment by seo guide — March 28, 2008 @1:35 am

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