One of the most important questions to ask when having any website created is ‘Will my website have a stand-alone domain?’ Note that the question refers to the website domain’s hosting, not the domain name itself. Anyone can have domain name – it’s where that name points to that counts and makes a difference in how much traffic can be generated.
Most people simply assume that when they have someone create a website for them, that website is a stand-alone web presence. Unfortunately, many cut-rate web developers and bargain site builders provide a ‘web site’, but the site itself might not be a stand-alone domain. Instead, your site is actually just a shared part of another, larger site.
So instead of joecandidate.com, you end up being hosted on a big, tacky URL like sitehosting.com/joecandidate or joecandidate.sitehosting.com. These URLs are hard to type, look bad on campaign literature, and can be impossible to fit on campaign signage.
One way to get around the tacky URL is to have the domain name (joecandidate.com) point directly to that specific page (sitehosting.com/joecandidate). That way, when someone types ‘joecandidate.com’, they automatically go to the ‘sitehosting.com/joecandidate’ page. Sometimes this method is combined with page framing, so a visitor never sees real URL. In this case, when someone types in the URL, it goes to a page that looks like a right domain (joecandidate.com), but it’s really just a framed-in page for www.sitehosting.com/joecandidate. How can you tell if a web page is framed? One way is that the top page title in the browser will never change as you navigate the site.
Framed in websites are harder for search engines to index. Because these pages are essentially buried within the larger domain, they may also have a harder time ranking for relevant searches.
Another problem with framed domains is that is very hard for the average visitor to bookmark anything other than an original framed page. When bookmarking a page on a framed site, visitors end up bookmarking the entire frameset. When they return later using the bookmark, they are simply returned to the original frameset. Then they have to find the page they really wanted all over again…
This article is a little more technical than usual, but the issue of domain names and domain hosting comes up once in a while. It’s important to know what you’re getting when you pay for a web service.
When prospective clients asks us ‘Will I have a stand-alone domain?’, we assure them all Online Candidate websites are hosted on separate, individual domains – with no tacky URLs or framing involved!
You may be interested in these related articles:
Tags: hosting, website design, website tips