Subdomain or not?

[adaaaam]

Hi guys,

Yesterday I installed XenForo for the first time at mturkers.org/forum.

I quickly discovered that XF adds /forums/ to forum permalinks e.g. mturkers.org/forum/forums/great-hits/

The same applies to threads, and this makes the URLs look redundant. After research I discovered this cannot be removed (or can it?).

So I have been considering moving XF to a subdomain in order to alleviate the redundancy, e.g. forum.mturkers.org/forums/great-hits/

My questions are:

1. Will it be easy to migrate my 1-day old installation to forum.mturkers.org?
2. Is there a way to rename the /forums/ and /threads/ in permalinks?
3. Will my SSL certificate for mturkers.org apply to forum.mturkers.org?
4. What are the implications of having to add a subdomain as a separate property in Google Analytics?
5. Would moving the forum to root where WordPress is installed be too complex, or could I still have the index point to WordPress (so that mturkers.org/forums would display the forum index and permalinks would look like mturkers.org/forums/great-hits)?
6. Is it better to move to a subdomain or a root shared with WP? (An added benefit of the root route is shared SEO juice with WP)

Note: I plan on installing the XenWord bridge in the future, which reportedly supports subdomains

Thanks!

 

[whynot]

Will it be easy to migrate my 1-day old installation to forum.mturkers.org?

There is no need to migrate.
forum.mturkers.org = mturkers.org/forum
Just make "forum" a subdomain in the site's control panel.

 

[adaaaam]

There is no need to migrate.
forum.mturkers.org = mturkers.org/forum
Just make "forum" a subdomain in the control panel.

Do you mean with my registrar? Currently I have the subdomain redirecting, are you saying I can have it partially mask paths (e.g. to threads/posts)? Also if so, how can I prevent duplicate content?

 

[whynot]

Do you mean with my registrar?

In your site's (host) control panel. (cPanel?)

Make a folder there: "myfolder"
Upload an image there named myimage.jpg
You can access it: http://mturkers.org/myfolder/myimage.jpg
Make myfolder to be a subdomain.
Now you can access that image as:
http://mturkers.org/myfolder/myimage.jpg
or
http://myfolder.mturkers.org/myimage.jpg

 

[adaaaam]

In your site's (host) control panel. (cPanel?)

Make a folder there: "myfolder"
Upload an image there named myimage.jpg
You can access it: http://mturkers.org/myfolder/myimage.jpg
Make myfolder to be a subdomain.
Now you can access that image as:
http://mturkers.org/myfolder/myimage.jpg
or
http://myfolder.mturkers.org/myimage.jpg

Is there some fundamental difference between installing XF as a subdomain vs. hacking it from a subdir? What would be the best way to accomplish this, .htaccess? (My host doesn't provide a cPanel, and my registrar, Google, doesn't support partial domain masking I discovered after trying something similar but with a completely separate domain)

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

change host

 

[whynot]

Is there some fundamental difference between installing XF as a subdomain vs. hacking it from a subdir? What would be the best way to accomplish this, .htaccess? (My host doesn't provide a cPanel, and my registrar, Google, doesn't support partial domain masking last time I tried something similar but with a completely separate domain)

My recommendation is to keep it as mturkers.org/forum.
Redirect mturkers.org to mturkers.org/forum if you feel it necessary.
Don't use subdomain to make things difficult.
My registrar has no say in masking. My host lets me do it.

 

[adaaaam]

change host

But the servers are amazing at Digital Ocean

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

But the servers are amazing at Digital Ocean

they not amazing, they very unsecure.

 

[adaaaam]

My recommendation is to keep it as mturkers.org/forum.
Redirect mturkers.org to mturkers.org/forum if you feel it necessary.
Don't use subdomain to make things difficult.
My registrar has no say in masking. My host lets me do it.

I'm not sure if my host provides DNS management which is why they helped out with trying to do it via Google when we were playing with a different domain for wordpress but after research we discovered most registrars don't support partial masking anymore.

So I was wondering, if I delete the board and re-install XF but pick a subdomain as the forum URL, does it install into a subdirectory or use some .htaccess magic or something to make it work?

 

[adaaaam]

they not amazing, they very unsecure.

Really? That's good to know! (I was referring to speed but have only heard great things regardless but am always looking for new info)

 

[whynot]

subdomain as the forum URL, does it install into a subdirectory

It will install into a subdirectory because the subdomain is a directory(folder)

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

5 or 10$ for VPS is JOKE, there is nothing amazing in that, unmanaged hosting is sucks.

i pay 33$ for this setup including Cpanel to!

Intel Xeon X5650 2 x 2.6GHz
40GB SSD and they give me more 40GB for free
3GB RAM
Unlimited Bandwidth
Fully Managed
DDos Protected
24/7 technical-monitor support

 

[adaaaam]

5 or 10$ for VPS is JOKE, there is nothing amazing in that, unmanaged hosting is sucks.

i pay 33$ for this setup including Cpanel to!

Intel Xeon X5650 2 x 2.6GHz
40GB SSD
3GB RAM
Unlimited Bandwidth
Fully Managed
DDos Protected
24/7 technical-monitor support

Hmm DO's actually cloud/VPS hybrid and supposedly quite beneficial for heavy serverloads (which I optimistically plan for lol) and the unmanaged aspect hasn't really stopped me from accomplishing much thus far (because I'm naturally curious and branch out into different communities such as this one which has just been great, to overcome the obstacles I encounter)

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

my host rocks

 

[m1ne]

5 or 10$ for VPS is JOKE, there is nothing amazing in that, unmanaged hosting is sucks.

i pay 33$ for this setup including Cpanel to!

Intel Xeon X5650 2 x 2.6GHz
40GB SSD and they give me more 40GB for free
3GB RAM
Unlimited Bandwidth
Fully Managed
DDos Protected
24/7 technical-monitor support

That's quite bad.

 

[ŽivaAkcija]

works like charm, for small forum size, no downtime almost 13 months from now

 

[TPerry]

5 or 10$ for VPS is JOKE, there is nothing amazing in that, unmanaged hosting is sucks.

Paying for something I have no need of sucks... so unmanaged is primo.

i pay 33$ for this setup including Cpanel to!

You have my condolences.

 

[TPerry]

Hmm DO's actually cloud/VPS hybrid and supposedly quite beneficial for heavy serverloads (which I optimistically plan for lol) and the unmanaged aspect hasn't really stopped me from accomplishing much thus far (because I'm naturally curious and branch out into different communities such as this one which has just been great, to overcome the obstacles I encounter)

There is nothing wrong with DO's offerings. In fact, I've used them several times for small things/jobs I needed - but I prefer having a full dedicated myself. If you know how to administer a server, there is no need to "pay extra" to have someone do it unless you are incompetent, scared or lazy.
Once my server is set up, the admin duties for it are very minimal as far as time use goes.

 

[n00bsaibot]

You have a few options.

XF.com uses the subdirectory "community". This is as simple as changing the "Board URL" in ACP, then renaming your install directory mturkers.org/community.

You could use route filters the change both /forums/ and /thread/. But from what I understand there may be trivial milisecond cost to this. It's a .htaccess rewrite.

Move it to forum.mturkers.org.... again you just need to upload the install directory there after changing the "Board URL" in ACP.