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How Domains, Sub-Domains & Directories Affect CTR? (7)

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tried searching for this and was surprised i couldn't find a thread... if anyone knows of one please let me know.

anyway, i was wondering about your experience with using different domains, sub-domains and sub-directories and how it affects CTR (like for lander click-through, or links in emails)

domains
i think the domain is pretty obvious, which is why some ppl registered (i did it too) com-whatever domains... so that they can add a sub-domain and make the site look like it's an authority site

e.g. diet.com-news.net/lander-page-url

so my question is related to this...


sub-domains
if i had domain1.com... in your experience what subdomains have you tested that got you a higher CTR?

a few that i thought of:

featured.domain1.com/lander-page-url
live.domain1.com/lander-page-url
news.domain1.com/lander-page-url
popular.domain1.com/lander-page-url
recommended.domain1.com/lander-page-url


sub-directories
or in your experience, have you found using sub-directories had higher CTR?

like:
domain1.com/featured/landing-page-url
domain1.com/live/landing-page-url
domain1.com/news/landing-page-url
domain1.com/popular/landing-page-url
domain1.com/recommended/landing-page-url



thank you in advance for your input!

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another application of this is if i wanted to install a tracker on a domain (instead of using a specialized tracking domain)...

would you install it on the sub-domain, or the sub-directory?

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It matters more if you're using a JS entry pops, because it'll pop with "The website subdomain.domain.com says: Bla bla bla".

Regarding sub-directories , I doubt it matters , my smartphone doesn't even show them if I don't tap specifically on the URL bar.

Case Study here btw http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...in-Name-Matter

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I posted about this already, but cant find the thread myself either, so let me quickly sum up what I know from my own experience.

1. domains matter more on desktop compared to mobile.
2. CDN urls (so the chaotic chains of characters) dont seem to perform worse than generic domains.
3. GEO specifis domains perform better than what specified in point 2.
4. for fake blogs/articles or more advanced LPs in general, the domain matters more than in case of simple LPs.
5. subdomains can substitute domains in almost all cases, they never caused any problem to me.

There was one more thread on here, someone used domains with the word "fraud" or something similar in them, they performed worse than generic domains.

As for placing the trackers - doesnt really matter where you place it, its just a "redirect" anyways, people wont really notice it at all.

EDIT: forgot about the case kepe95 just mentioned before I submitted this reply : in case of JS alerts, domains matter the most, but a subdirectory or better a subdomain will work anyways.

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thanks guys!

didn't get this point - can you clarify?

i might be iframing articles with the same tracking sub-domain or sub-directory, that's why i asked

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Subdomains - that part that you can put instead of WWW. So - subdomain.domain.com - you can ask you host to configure it for you so that whatever you put as a subdomain, redirects to a subdirectory with the same name - I think its called wildcards. Since its the first part of the url, its something the surfers notice the first, so Im using these instead of registering a new domain for whatever vertical I want to test and it works pretty much the same as having a dedicated domain name.

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The general consensus, backed up by significant amounts of data, is that for conventional short-form landers, the domain name, subdomain, and sub-directory don't matter terribly much.

Personally, I've even occasionally just run a campaign off a bare IP, and not really noticed a significant difference. You probably shouldn't do that, but it's a useful thing to know.

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