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Ask HN: Subdomains vs Directories for Account has many Users
I am making an app where several user work towards a common goal grouped under an account. What would be a better structure for my urls?
* Subdomains: some-team-name.app.com
* Directories: app.com/some-team-name
- jacquesm 16y agoI've used subdomains for years (the '@' above should be a '.' I believe') and have recently switched them all over to path names. Subdomains were all 'hot' 10 years ago, but these days people seem to be comfortable with having a path in the url. Subdomains look a bit more consistent (going from the 'small' to the 'large', user domain tld) than pathnames but that's personal preference on my part. If you are going to use Google Analytics then you'll be pleased to know that if you use path names that Google will not get confused when counting uniques (using subdomains there is a lot of double counting).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- clyfe 16y ago'@' => '.', typo sorry, edited
- stympy 16y agoBe aware there can be a cost difference if you want to provide SSL to your users. A wildcard SSL cert to cover *.app.com will cost you $200/year, whereas a standard SSL cert to cover just app.com will cost you $20/year. I personally prefer subdomains, but I agree that people are generally comfortable with whatever approach you take.
- rykov 16y agoPros/cons to consider in a few contexts: * Custom domains - if you ever want to allow custom domains (ala Tumblr, Posterous, etc), it's probably easier to go w/ subdomains. The URL recognition will be much easier. * Security - if you ever want to allow custom HTML/Javascript, I would say that custom domains are a must for security reasons. However, passing login credentials across multiple domains might be trickier than using a single domain. * SEO - I'm not completely sure, but very curious to know. Can someone chime in on SEO tradeoffs of these two options?