I'm begining work on web sites for a client. There are three separate sites,
the main site (contains the home page) and two other sites that, right now,
are planned to be accessable via www.mainsite.com/secondsite, and
www.mainsite.com/thirdsite.

The first site is about the person (somewhat famous), the second site is
about this person's non-profit foundation, and the third site is about this
person's consulting business with products to sell. So all three sites have
very different purposes and content and will link to each other via each
site's primary navigation.

Question: should these two other sites be broken out into their own separate
sites and domain names? I'm thinking for reasons of professionalism and
there might be search engine advantages. Also because one is a foundation
and the other for profit, it might be confusing (and lead to validity
questions).

Thoughts?

Thanks
Doug

Doug wrote:
> I'm begining work on web sites for a client. There are three separate sites,
> the main site (contains the home page) and two other sites that, right now,
> are planned to be accessable via www.mainsite.com/secondsite, and
> www.mainsite.com/thirdsite.
>
> The first site is about the person (somewhat famous), the second site is
> about this person's non-profit foundation, and the third site is about this
> person's consulting business with products to sell. So all three sites have
> very different purposes and content and will link to each other via each
> site's primary navigation.
>
> Question: should these two other sites be broken out into their own separate
> sites and domain names? I'm thinking for reasons of professionalism and
> there might be search engine advantages. Also because one is a foundation
> and the other for profit, it might be confusing (and lead to validity
> questions).
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks
> Doug
>
>

If it were up to me, I'd put them in separate domains - domains are cheap.

But the real question is - what does your customer want?

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
EMAIL REMOVED
==================

On Jun 2, 9:18 am, "Doug" <dgeist...@snet.net> wrote:
> I'm begining work on web sites for a client. There are three separate sites,
> the main site (contains the home page) and two other sites that, right now,
> are planned to be accessable viawww.mainsite.com/secondsite, andwww.mainsite.com/thirdsite.

If they're subdirectories rather than filenames, you should include
the trailing slash as http://www.mainsite.com/thirdsite/ (and also
include the http:// part when giving the URLs so that they get
properly hyperlinked in mail/news readers; not that that's an issue
here since they're hypothetical rather than actual URLs).

> The first site is about the person (somewhat famous), the second site is
> about this person's non-profit foundation, and the third site is about this
> person's consulting business with products to sell. So all three sites have
> very different purposes and content and will link to each other via each
> site's primary navigation.

Since the sites are really for distinct entities of different types,
then perhaps they should be in domains in the appropriate TLDs for
each -- a .org domain for the nonprofit foundation, a .com domain for
the for-profit company, and a .name domain for the individual.

Different subsites related to the same entity, on the other hand, are
best done as subdomains, like subsite1.example.net and
subsite2.example.net.

--
Dan
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/

The client has suggested the directory approach, but they are open to
suggestions/ideas. I agree though, separate domains makes more sense and
(IMO) looks more proffesional.

Thanks for the response.

"Jerry Stuckle" <EMAIL REMOVED> wrote in message
news:EMAIL REMOVED. ..
> Doug wrote:
>> I'm begining work on web sites for a client. There are three separate
>> sites, the main site (contains the home page) and two other sites that,
>> right now, are planned to be accessable via www.mainsite.com/secondsite,
>> and www.mainsite.com/thirdsite.
>>
>> The first site is about the person (somewhat famous), the second site is
>> about this person's non-profit foundation, and the third site is about
>> this person's consulting business with products to sell. So all three
>> sites have very different purposes and content and will link to each
>> other via each site's primary navigation.
>>
>> Question: should these two other sites be broken out into their own
>> separate sites and domain names? I'm thinking for reasons of
>> professionalism and there might be search engine advantages. Also because
>> one is a foundation and the other for profit, it might be confusing (and
>> lead to validity questions).
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Doug
>
> If it were up to me, I'd put them in separate domains - domains are cheap.
>
> But the real question is - what does your customer want?
>
> --
> ==================
> Remove the "x" from my email address
> Jerry Stuckle
> JDS Computer Training Corp.
> EMAIL REMOVED
> ==================