ODP and Third Level Subdomains

HI All;

Give that the web is expanding exponentially while the present supply of IP addresses is limited and fast dwindling, I am wondering about the ODP policies regarding subdomains such as http://www.subdomain.maindomain.com.

Other than being a way to organize the information on your site in a logical manner, many sites which address more than one topic on the site use this method to divide their site into sections which are relevant to a particlular topic or theme.

There are also other reasons to use subdomains, one of them bring the theming algorithms that some search engines use, which necessitates that clearly identifiable sections of the site be grouped according to URL and theme if they are to be indexed properly.

According to some sources less than 2% of the websites worldwide are hosted on distinct IP addresses, but use subdomains and/or headers to distinguish between various sites.

I understand that it is ODP policy to grant only one listing per site, but how does this apply to sites using subdomains, or for that matter addressing more than one subject on the same site with a distinct IP address?

Hi,

Well, IMHO www.a.foo.bar and www.b.foo.bar are different sites.

Only one listing per site isn't a golden rule. For instance, in "Personal Homepages" there are probably lots of listings like http://members.aol.com/...

Best regards,
ODP editor jabesse

>Well, IMHO www.a.foo.bar and www.b.foo.bar are different sites. <

Correct. Sites are defined in terms of content rather than domain names. /images/icons/smile.gif While we won't list every single page of http://www.geocities.com , we will list separate and distinct portions of the domain's offerings (i.e. http://www.geocities.com/user1/ , http://www.geocities.com/user2/ , etc.).

What holydayzone said.

Mel, for a more in-depth approach to the general deeplinking issue, you may want to take a look to this article. While not all third level domains could be considered as distinct sites and thus fall under the "hosting deeplink" approach (some 3rd level domains actually are just a good use of canonicals for SEO purposes, but don't offer distinct or relevant content not accessible from the main site), some of them do.

I would therefore list both www.software-tutorial.mydomain.com and www.hardware-technical-sheet.mydomain.com in two separate categories, if they have good and relevant content, but I won't list www.software-product-a.mydomain.com and www.software-product-b.mydomain.com in the same /Software category when these two pages are easily accessible from www.software.mydomain.com which is already listed there.

That is, using themed sections/canonicals with kw-rich paths for getting better rankings in SERPs is good for SEO purposes, but won't affect our judgement in and of itself, since we look at unique content relevant for the category and not accessible otherwise. OTOH, organising content in themed sections instead of mixing it throughout the site, sure helps in having editors evaluating if and when a deeplink makes sense and is acceptable.

HI Ettore and others who have responded:

I think this link answers the question quite clearly, and for me dispels any questions I have.

It appears based on this that content which is on a different topic or theme can be added provided the the all pervasive ODP stricture regarding usefulness is met.

This clearly sets ODP apart from several other directories which seem to have problems either eunderstanding or using third level domains in their listings.

Thanks.

You're absolutely correct. As editors are so fond of saying, we list content not sites.