September 15, 2004

7:30 PM

What are the benefits and drawbacks of hosting blogging software on a domain separate from a blog's domain? The only advantage I see is that it keeps my blog's log files clear of my MovableType 3.11 installation, resulting in cleaner traffic reports. I see no disadvantages. Is it better to just make subdomain for the software installation?
posted by bitpart to (4 comments total)

You might not want to create an entire subdomain, but a separate hostname might be enough to do the job, properly configured. It's fairly trivial to do.
posted by majick at 7:52 PM on September 15, 2004

The disadvantage would be maintaining two servers and dealing with keeping the two communicating. It's kind of a lot of work just to clean up your traffic reports; why not just add a filter to the report so it leaves out the logins to MT, etc?

I'm not sure how making a subdomain on the same server would be an advantage or disadvantage; the bits and bobs of MT 3.11 already go in their own folder, and from the back-of-house a folder looks the same as a subdomain.

Unless I'm misreading the question completely. Which is totally possible.
posted by bcwinters at 7:53 PM on September 15, 2004

The disadvantage would be maintaining two servers

The two domains would be on the same server. I already know how to go about doing it, I just want to know what's other people's experiences are in doing this. My host limits what I can configure with analog. I'll send him an email to see if that can be changed. In the mean time, I'd still like the hear why people do this. I know Jason Kottke does it using the yoink.org domain, and Merlin Mann does it with his 5ives site using hotdogladies.com. In both those instances, The mt-comments.cgi and mt-trackback.cgi files for the respective blogs are hosted on those sites.
posted by bitpart at 8:04 PM on September 15, 2004

I have my MovableType installation on a separate subdomain (movabletype.linnwood.org) and blogs on different domains.

It works just fine. The one thing I would tell you about is that when some one previews a comment they are adding to your blog, the web browsers address bar will show the MovableType install location. For example, if you click to see add a comment to FreeQunosar.com, you will be taken to "http://www.freequonsar.com/older/2004/09/some_title.html#comments" but if you click to preview your comment the address bar will show "http://movabletype.linnwood.org/mt-comments.cgi"


I don't think it is a real big deal, but if you want to keep the location of the install a secret or something you might care.

Why do it? I have multiple domains running off of one MT install, and I just thought it looked cleaner. Also, I plan on holding on to Linnwood.org for awhile, other domains may come and go... I didn't want to have to mess with MT install every time I added or dropped a domain.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 9:33 PM on September 15, 2004