Working on subdomain instead of top domain

[TheAdminMarket]

Hello,

Is (are) any disadvantage(s) to have my site working in a subdomain instead of the top domain?

My domain is teriakis.com which is my surname but I wanted to have in the url my full name. So I created a subdomain: www.christos and then I placed a htaccess redirection to this subdomain. So my full url now is: http://www.christos.teriakis.com something that I like.

But as a site is not only what we like, but what must be the correct, can you help me by listing any possible problems that I'll face in the future? eg Does search engines counts less the subdomains? etc etc.

Thank you

[CarpCharacin]

you should set up a redirect so if someone goes to teriakis.com it tales them to http://www.christos.teriakis.com/.

[TheAdminMarket]

yo should set up a redirect so if someone goes to teriakis.com it tales them to http://www.christos.teriakis.com/.

Thank you. This is something that I already did using cPanel. Just don't know if should be bad for search engines to have my site in a subdomain. Let's see :)

[RichieBoy67]

Just my opinion here and things have changed so much with search engines recently so I could be wrong but a third level domain(sub domain) is weaker then root. I believe google uses different metrics to index them.

I am not sure how much this would impact you though.

[HM666]

Yeah I agree, I've ALWAYS set my site to the root and never used a sub domain for a main site. I really believe it will seriously screw up ANY SEO you have put into place already. Sub domains are for various other areas of your web site. The usual structure is...

Main Root of the domain...
........Sub domain forums.mysite.com or blog.mysite.com

Its usually NEVER your main site as a subdomain.

Did you try to see if christosteriakis.com is available? It would probably be better to buy the domain you want and then just do a 301 redirect instead. This would fare better on SEO I think.

[TheAdminMarket]

I see... :( Thank you both for your kind help. Most probably I'll move it to root. As I know I only need to change the URL in admincp or there are other things that I must take care?

[HM666]

Change it in the the admincp BEFORE you move it back. Some hosts for some reason do not play well with trying to move first and then change the URL. Also if you have edited your config.php to include the forum pathway you would need to change that to the new pathway before you move it. That should be all of what you need to move it.

[thetechgenius]

You could setup a Portal or a Landing Page on the Root Domain (Top Level Domain), and have a link to your forum from the Portal or Landing Page.