[Sigia-l] URLs and brands

[Beth Mazur]

I would greatly appreciate pointers to any articles/discussions/arguments
about URLs and brands. Where I work, we're having a almost visceral
need (which may be more political than practical, I admit) to avoid
having groups come up with their own domains.

We've been pushing the slash concept, you know:

company.com/group1
company.com/group2
company.com/group3

Our rationale is that most people only think company name, so they'll
probably just type company.com and then navigate from there anyways.

Some of our departments would prefer doing the unique domain, like:

companygroup1.com
companygroup2.com
companygroup3.com

or some such. 

Of course, there's also what may be the workable compromise, which
perhaps we all would go for:

group1.company.com
group2.company.com
group3.company.com

I came across something that suggested that this was an advantage to
the first alternative from a search engine perspective, but now I'm thinking
that that was probably dated.

Anyways, I'd love arguments, references, what you do, and so on.
If it matters, one of these groups publishes a magazine, and feels 
the need for their own identity. But I figure if Oprah doesn't need
to get omagazine.com, we don't need companymagazine.com. But
hey, what do I know? Thanks, in advance, for any info!

I now return you to your regularly scheduled AIfIA troll messages.

Beth Mazur
IDblog: http://idblog.org
beth at idblog.org