Hi.
I created subdomains for www.gotta-yell-it.com.
I would like subdomains to resolve to the pages related to the subdomain.

In other words, how can I have http://learnguitar.gotta-yell-it.com resolve to the page displayed at
http://www.gotta-yell-it.com/learnguitar.html?

I tried pointing the subdomains to associated directories of the /netdocs default, but have a feeling those directories don't exist.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

When assigning subdomain or domains do directory pointers, you can only select directories, not files.
So, in this example, you can point learnguitar.gotta-yell-it.com to /htdocs/learnguitar, but you cannot point it to /htdocs/learnguitar.html

One work-around that I can think of is to create a /htdocs/learnguitar/index.html file that redirects to http://www.gotta-yell-it.com/learnguitar.html using a meta refresh tag.

If this sounds confusing, it's not.
Simply open a blank Notepad or some text editor on your computer, and copy this code into it:

Then you will want to save it as "index.html"
Using FTP, publish this file into the /htdocs/learnguitar folder
Then, on your Hosting Details screen, repoint learnguitar.gotta-yell-it.com to /htdocs/learnguitar

It may take up to 15 minutes for this to start working, but that should be it.

Bob,
Make sure that you have a good grasp on when to use subdomain vs. folders. Be sure that you look at it from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) perspective or you might end up hurting yourself/ranking when people try to search for you.

There are pro's and con's to both options, just wanted to point that out before you actually build out a solution and start linking/promoting your website.

I think Duane has a good point on the redirect, but one problem is that you end up with same URL you begin with and therefore defeating the purpose.

Charles Self
Narrow Gate Solutions
www.narrowgatesolutions.com
dotnetnuke.narrowgatesolutions.com - DNN Related Resources

Charles,
Thanks...
I'm open to moving the specific pages into their own directory... I thought the subdomain approach would play better with SEO, but am still relatively new to the game. If someone found the root, it would have links to all the subdomain pages. I intended to build each subdomain out sufficiently to rank well on their specific topics.
I'm using the sitebuilder tool, so it's not obvious to me how to create the directories... do I just move the pages to subordinate positions in the graphical tool? I tried that briefly, but I noticed my links in the leftmost column go away on those pages. I haven't figured out how to manually add links below the default pic to compensate.
Thanks again, and any insight is sincerely appreciated.
-Bob

Duane:
Thanks for the suggestion. I touched on my dilemma in my response to Charles below, in that I can't see how to create directories using the sitebuilder tool. Is it just the obvious drag of a page to the proper place in the hierarchy of the graphical tool or creating it in the directory pointer section? I don't suppose it would be totally awful to have the html page file as the only file in the directory, resulting in:
www.gotta-yell-it.com/learnguitar/learnguitar.html

It is long, but I can use a display URL in text ads such as learnguitar.gotta-yell-it.com and have my destination URL be the long version above... or use the redirect you provided.

I'll have to dig in to treatment of subdomains vs. directories by search engines.

If you could clear up exactly how I should create the directories, i.e. in sitebuilder or in the directory pointer window, I'd appreciate it.

thanks again,
-Bob

Bob,
I'm not familiar with with the site builder tool, so I wont be much help there.

In regards to the primary issue of subdomain vs. directory. As a rule (and this is for me only) I only create a subdomain if the target audience is greatly different.

For example, my company Narrow Gate Solutions provides web services to nonprofits. We also have a technical service division that focuses in on the DotNetNuke product.

These really are two separate business channels, so we use a subdomain to keep the business separate and then we can market the different domains through separate lines.

For you, I would be inclined to go with:

www.gotta-yell-it.com/learn-guitar/index.html

Set "learn-guitar" as the folder name and separate it with a "-". Google (and the others) will see this as a keyword that will be in the page meta title, meta keywords and page copy. You then could have multiple pages in the "learn-guitar" directory. Again, just my opinion.

Good Luck and Let me know if you have any more questions.


Charles Self
Narrow Gate Solutions
www.narrowgatesolutions.com
dotnetnuke.narrowgatesolutions.com - DNN Related Resources

Charles,
Thank you very much!
-Bob

One more thing since we were posting at the same time.

Anytime you have a directory, always use a default start page name (i.e. index.html) for the first page.

www.gotta-yell-it.com/learn-guitar/index.html

This way if someone types www.gotta-yell-it.com/learn-guitar/ the default start page pulls up. This also will help you create shorter SEO friendly URL's.

Good luck...

Charles Self
Narrow Gate Solutions
www.narrowgatesolutions.com
dotnetnuke.narrowgatesolutions.com - DNN Related Resources

Bob,

I didn't realize you were using the site builder tool, sorry. There isn't any easy way to do what you're looking to do with the Image Cafe site builder tool. Instead, you can use FileManager.
In FileManager, you can upload that index.html file as described above into the /learnguitar folder
Just have the refresh go to http://www.gotta-yell-it.com/learnguitar/learnguitar.html
instead of http://www.gotta-yell-it.com/learnguitar.html

The FileManager can be found if you go into your Manage Web Hosting Details and to FTP & Content Publishing and then File Manager
From here, just go into the htdocs/learnguitar folder and press the upload button at the top.
You can then select the new index.html file on the bottom of the page and upload it.

This should start working right away.

Awesome. Thanks for the help!