Subdomains are great, but beware the typos.
Have you ever come across a Google information page that’s a subdomain of WithGoogle.com?
If you just go to Withgoogle.com you’ll be forwarded to Google.com. But type in certain third level domains, often referred to as subdomains, of WithGoogle.com and you’ll find specialized product pages.
brasilfreewifi.withgoogle.com shows you how to get free Google Wifi in Brazil.
globalimpactchallenge.withgoogle.com is the site for the company’s recently announced Global Impact Challenge for UK non-profits.
getinstantbuy.withgoogle.com let’s you fill out a form to learn more about about Google Wallet Instant Buy.
It’s quick and easy for Google to set up these subdomain sites. But we all know that people often forget the dot in a subdomain, and apparently Google is aware of this.
It just registered a number of second level .com domains that are equivalent to these third level domains minus the dot that separates the second and third level:
creatoracademywithgoogle.com
eventswithgoogle.com
fvmwithgoogle.com
getinstantbuywithgoogle.com
globalimpactchallengewithgoogle.com
mappingwithgoogle.com
onetodaywithgoogle.com
tourbuilderwithgoogle.com
It seems that a number of these are related to recent product announcements. It registered second level domains for “older” product pages previously. For example, it registered brasilfreewifiwithgoogle.com last year.
Now if Google would just forward these to their respective websites.
Companies that have a number of subdomains should take note.
Acro says
Shows just how well Google spins its own (Matt Cutts) argument about subdomains.
eduhunters.com says
Great Google uses subdomain
rugs says
What??? this is such a NON storey.
If I shout BOB (yes bob will reply), even if I intended to shout BILL.
This is how language / addresses … work??? wheres the storey?
imsorryk says
What?! Do you mean why would this have happened? 😀