URLs and Domain Names

[gators]

I was wondering if it is considered a different domain name and therefore a different website if you add a word to your main URL before the .com?
For example:
Orig. domain: www.wiget.com to www.wiget.shop.com
I would like to know this for affliate tracking
purposes and costs. Thanks.

[wrmineo]

gators Welcome to WPW - glad you stopped by and I'm sure you will be too in no time.

I'm guessing you don't own shop.com; did you mean to reverse that?

If so, and your host supports having sub-domains, it could have separate content and a completely different website.

However, it you publish the exact same content on a sub-domain of your domain, you'll be shooting yourself in the foot in many ways. Duplicate content will get you a free pass to the back of the search engine result pages, if not altogether banned.

Please clarify your desires and intentions and the power of your peers here at WPW will gladly weigh-in on suggestions and options that you might consider to suit your goals.

Good Luck!
w®m

[gators]

Thanks for you quick reply. Those domain names were superficial for the purpose of an example. Say I own www.widget.com and I would like to build a site that is similar but customized for different affliates. The affliate name would become part of that URL such as www.toys4kids.widget.com. The domain would be pulling from my server and have some of the same content as widget.com but be customized.

Currently, I pay our web analysis tool for several domain websites that are completely different. I would like to be able to track information under the same domain- widget.com and pay for it all under one domain. widget.com the subdomain toys4kids.widget.com would give me the ability for some separate analysis.

If I add a sub-domain to the main domain name, is my anaylis tool going to want to charge me for a whole separate domain name and site?

[wrmineo]

Originally Posted by gators

...I would like to build a site that is similar but customized for different affliates ... domain would be pulling from my server and have some of the same content ... but be customized ...

Currently, I pay our web analysis tool for several domain websites that are completely different. I would like to be able to track information under the same domain ... and pay for it all under one domain ...

If I add a sub-domain to the main domain name, is my anaylis tool going to want to charge me for a whole separate domain name and site?

Again, be careful to have as much different content as possible so as not to get slapped for duplicate content. How much? I honestly don't know. Google and others warn against duplicate content, but no one specifies how much is too much, or what is the tolerence.

Sub's should give you completely different tracking.

Will your analysis charge you? Likely. You may want to investigate a webhost that offers free sub-domains and free web statistics and alleviate some additional costs right off the top. Mine for example, for the fees I pay, allows me to host up to 30 domains, 150 sub-domains, unlimited disk storage and more - but bonus for me is the web stats and tracking.

[gators]

Thank you for your help!