I maintain a site for a credit union that wants to start a blog. The IT department here doesn't want to have MySQL on our Windows servers, so I'm looking to host the blog outside.

Can I host on an outside server as a sub-domain of our existing domain (I.E. http://blog.creditunion.org)? If so, how would that work for directing traffic? We host our own nameservers, so it seems to me that would be the place to redirect from. Not sure how to go about this.

Yes, and yes. This is done all the time. You will name your blog server will be called exactly that: blog.creditunion.org

Create the appropriate A record(s) in your DNS to point to that server and its separate IP address.

This is fairly standard procedure in a larger organization with multiple servers, each with separate IP address(es). Each server gets its own name as a subdomain, and DNS is handled on the primary incoming server, or on a dedicated DNS server, if it's a very large organization.

This should be an easy setup for you. Enjoy.

I would redirect from your name servers.
Just setup a record with the appropriate IP address.

As for setting up on a sub domain (vs. setting it up within a directory on your site), there are two theories and both have pros and cons. These have been debated before and I am sure a little searching through these forums will give you insight into which is the best approach.
However, looking at your circumstance it would seem that it will only be possible to host outside of your main domain. I actually prefer this method.

As for a good host, we have tried many and our favorite to date is Media Temple (www.mediatemple.net).
We are in no way affiliated with them, but I am just fanatic about their service, their control panel, even their knowledge base is intuitive and works like it should.
They have affordable packages and you can even install WordPress with thier one click install (you may have to upgrade afterwards, but you are going to need configure and install widgets anyways)

Good luck

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neighborhood websites for communities, associations,clubs & organizations

We just use blogspot (https://www.blogger.com/) - free and simple.

We didn't use a sub-domain for our main blog, though the other posters are correct that you can. Instead, we used a different domain and then have sub-domais for our specific locations.

Our site: http://www.GoWithCEA.com
Our main blog: http://www.ceastudyabroadblog.com/
One of our Destination blogs: http://spain.ceastudyabroadblog.com/


Hope that helps!

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MartinK
Study Abroad with CEA

Yes. You can even do this using Blogger. You can point blogger to a sub-domain of your own site.

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http://thatsnews.blogspot.com http://thats-business.blogspot.com/ http://thatschristmas.blogspot.com

This works fine as well, and many sites do it. I personally just don't think it looks as clean to have all the different domain names. From an SEO perspective, I'm not thrilled about separate SLDs [second level domain] (e.g., creditunion.org) for a couple of reasons, among others:

1. When someone searches the contents of your site on Google using the "site:" command (e.g., "site:hostingdude.com cheap web hosting blog"), then you want all the results to come up for your whole site. By using sub domains, you'll get the results of all subdomains appearing for the Googler.

2. A bigger site, in terms of page count of unique content, is viewed as more relevant by Google's algorhithm for ranking purposes. The more subdomains with sprawling content, the more relevant your SLD (e.g., creditunion.org) will be assumed to be, and the higher your Google ranking.

So I look at everything from an SEO perspective, while the other suggestion may be from a different perspective, and you need to evaluate what you're really after.

Enjoy your project!

For hosting a blog for the site first add your thoughts to your blog every day. Add photos to make it better. Get comments from other people to find out what they think.By this you can make your blog more efficient.
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synjones
Alcohol Treatment

Since you have your own nameserver, just configure the sub-domain IP Address pointing to whatever server ip address. I have been doing this for some domains.

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Your on the money HostingDude!

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