Does This Make Any Sense??

[Aminka Ozmun]

I'm just about ready to start up a site promoting my fiction! I've decided to sign up with 3dCart, but they don't offer forums and a forum seems important to me.

It seems like I should be able to still create a forum as a subdomain, however, but as 3dCart is not a registrar I'm on my own where this would be concerned. I take it that I'd just get my registrar to create a subdomain and that's all, right?

Now what if I made the forums a separate stand-alone site, with its own identity and its own domain name? (This would be a WP site utilizing bbPress for the forums.) Does that make any sense from a business or SEO point of view??


Thanks!

[Thunderkeg]

If you are using 3Dcart it is your business point of view and it is SEO for those who look into it

[GregD]

it makes no sense to have your fiction on sale on one domain and then a forum on a totally different domain. i dont know of any business who has these 2 things separate and it is not even logical.

basically you have not done proper research and have rushed into a shopping cart solution. the fault is in your lack of work.

options?

from my limited IT knowledge:

1. discuss with the 3Dcart support and try to get them to support you on this issue

2. buy a domain name and integrate both the 3Dcart and the forum into or under that domain name - again check with 3Dcart support if their shopping solution can be integrated seemlessly into another domain or you have to use their domain

3. dump the 3Dcart if they are not supporting and there is no option for integration and look for a solution which can satisfy all your requirements

4. dump the forum and continue with just shopping cart

[just jr]

Originally Posted by GregD

it makes no sense to have your fiction on sale on one domain and then a forum on a totally different domain. i dont know of any business who has these 2 things separate and it is not even logical.

basically you have not done proper research and have rushed into a shopping cart solution. the fault is in your lack of work.

options?

from my limited IT knowledge:

1. discuss with the 3Dcart support and try to get them to support you on this issue

2. buy a domain name and integrate both the 3Dcart and the forum into or under that domain name - again check with 3Dcart support if their shopping solution can be integrated seemlessly into another domain or you have to use their domain

3. dump the 3Dcart if they are not supporting and there is no option for integration and look for a solution which can satisfy all your requirements

4. dump the forum and continue with just shopping cart

actually....

Zan Perrion - The Ars Amorata

Natural Game Forum by Zan Perrion


as long as you link up to the forum to your site that doesnt matter much

[Aminka Ozmun]

Originally Posted by Thunderkeg

If you are using 3Dcart it is your business point of view and it is SEO for those who look into it

Uh...huh???

[Aminka Ozmun]

Originally Posted by GregD

it makes no sense to have your fiction on sale on one domain and then a forum on a totally different domain. i dont know of any business who has these 2 things separate and it is not even logical.

I didn't think so but was given that suggestion by a 3dcart salesman. That's why I ask!

Originally Posted by GregD

basically you have not done proper research and have rushed into a shopping cart solution. the fault is in your lack of work.

Well, this is part of my "proper research"...that's why I'm asking!

Originally Posted by GregD

options?

from my limited IT knowledge:

1. discuss with the 3Dcart support and try to get them to support you on this issue

That's one big reason why I went with a robust open-source solution like WordPress: I'm not waiting on any one entity to provide critical features.

Originally Posted by GregD

2. buy a domain name and integrate both the 3Dcart and the forum into or under that domain name - again check with 3Dcart support if their shopping solution can be integrated seemlessly into another domain or you have to use their domain

No, that's the thing about proprietary solutions: It's just how things are, that's it. No tinkering with a closed system.

Originally Posted by GregD

3. dump the 3Dcart if they are not supporting and there is no option for integration and look for a solution which can satisfy all your requirements

4. dump the forum and continue with just shopping cart

I went WordPress! Absolutely amazing. I looked into Drupal but that's one crazy system they have. Looked briefly at Joomla, too...but WordPress is a great site-in-a-box solution to get up and running in no time!

[Aminka Ozmun]

Originally Posted by just jr

actually....

Zan Perrion - The Ars Amorata

Natural Game Forum by Zan Perrion


as long as you link up to the forum to your site that doesnt matter much

Those are two different sites, though -- two different domains, and treated as such by Google. Bad SEO implications, unless two very distinct sites are indeed what's intended!

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Aminka Ozmun

Now what if I made the forums a separate stand-alone site, with its own identity and its own domain name? (This would be a WP site utilizing bbPress for the forums.) Does that make any sense from a business or SEO point of view??

No, it doesn't really make sense. From an SEO perspective, it would probably be a bad thing. It's generally better to have as much content as possible on one single domain name.

[Apresto]

Agreed with Curtis2011 here, you should be as much informative and full of content as possible on a single domain, and be as sophisticated as possible. With SEO that's the first steps.

[Aminka Ozmun]

Thanks, Curtis, Apresto! Good to know, though I had to go WordPress anyway for other reasons, initially....