Advice needed: mydomain.com/store or store.mydomain.com?

[rstevenson]

I've often seen stores with a URL of the form store.mydomain.com. What's the advantage of doing it that way? And if it's A Good Thing (TM), how does one do it?

On the other hand, are there any disadvantages to the mydomain.com/store method? Does it get dicey if you have pages outside of the store folder containing things like Policy statements, general info about the company, and so on?

[Kim]

Best advice is neither of those choices. Run your shop in the root and have all of your ancillary pages built using Zen Cart.

[rstevenson]

I don't understand Kim. Are you saying that all the tens of thousands of stores using either of those methods are wrong, and there is another method I've never seen that is right?

Perhaps my question wasn't clear. I'm not asking about where the zen-cart is installed, but rather about the (apparent) URLs of the different methods and what those (apparent) URLs imply.

But let's skip ahead. In all the install docs I've read, no one has said to do it the way you just suggested. If that really is the best way, is there a tutorial somewhere that tells how to do it? I might as well do it right the first time rather than change it later.

Rob

[Website Rob]

Hi Rob, excellent Name BTW.

The reason for using store.mydomain.com is probably because they want their Shop part of the site to be totally seperated from the main site. Usually setup as seperate account, it can run just fine on its own but with links to it from the main site. Also quite common for support.domain.com, which is a setup used by many of us Hosters as well.

[Vger]

I thought that Kim's advice was quite clear - install it in the root of your main domain so that your website is availabe at http://www.yourdomain.com and not yourdomain.com/store or in a subdomain e.g. store.yourdomain.com.

This is more for the ease of use of your customers than anything else. People do like to stick www. in front of things and if they do that with a subdomain they'll just get an error. As for main domain over a folder on a main domain:

1. It's a shorter address
2. It saves you having to redirect people from the root to the folder.

Vger

[rstevenson]

Hi Vger,

Her advice wasn't clear to me but is to you. That's because both you and she already know these things. I don't, so a quick toss off answer isn't going to be clear at all. Website Rob's answer did help, though there are still subtleties I need help with. For example...

The install docs say to put the store folder in the HTML folder of the site. I have a VPS (Virtual Private Server) situation, where the domain.com folder contains the HTML folder, which now contains the store folder. So the URL is domain.com/store. But it sounds like you're saying to put the store folder up beside, not inside, the HTML folder. Which goes against the advice in the install documentation. New users are bound to be confused if the knowledgeable advice they receive on the forum contradicts the docs. ;-)

Rob

[jetx]

Actually I disagree with the advice given. I always use either a sub domain (store.domain.com), or which I prefer to use these days is domain.com/store.

It is really easy to write your htacess doc to do a permanent re-direct to whatever directory you want. This is, imo, a far better way to do things, plus gives you the option of using the root directory for a non-store purpose, say for a flash intro, whatever.

[rstevenson]

That's sort of what I was thinking jetx. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if I should keep my categories outside of the cart too, since they are fairly complex and are already all set up. Customers can start there and enter the realm of the cart when they choose a particular category. I just wonder if it would be a problem for the same customer during the same session to be bouncing in and out of the store, as when, for example, they come back out to the category page to start in a different direction. Might be more trouble than it's worth.

I have another thread started regarding my category issues, so my route forward will likely depend on the answers there.

[jetx]

I'd certainly keep the cats within the store to prevent confusion if nothing else.

The following link I bookmarked a few years ago, covers some stuff you've mentioned, a good read.

forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=122459

[Vger]

so a quick toss off answer isn't going to be clear at all

My answer wasn't a "toss off" answer, and I went to some trouble to explain why I said what I did.

However, it's your site - you can do what you like with it.

Vger