Should we stream videos from a subdomain or subfolder?

[Ryan-Ricketts]

This is causing some hand-wrangling and I need some help.

Let's say we were developing rich video content for our products and our agency is hosting the content on a new external server. There are already plans to link to these videos from product detail pages, category pages, and landing pages on our main website: www.example.com.

Would it be better to create a new subdomain or to use a subfolder with a reverse proxy technique for this video content? It's not truly a microsite and will not have a gallery page to navigate the various videos.

For example, would it be better to use this: video.example.com/

...or this (executed with a reverse proxy www.example.com/video/

Of course, regardless of whether this new content will live on a subdomain or within a subfolder, we plan on creating a video Sitemap using guidance from Justin Hammack in this terrific post.

[IM_Learner]

I believe it doesn't matter as the only concern is speed and it has nothing to do with SEO.

[PhilNottingham]

Hey Ryan,

I'm just want to be clear that i understand what you're planning here. Are you going to embed the videos on product pages across the site, but are wondering whether the actual video files (the .mov/.mp4 files) should be held on a subdomain or subfolder?

Thanks,

Phil

[Ryan-Ricketts]

Totally correct.

[PhilNottingham]

Cool.

To be honest, it really doesn't matter a great deal. i would be inclined to go down the subdomain route - just because it makes it easier if you want to shift things up and move them to another domain later on, but that's entirely personal preference.

Often video files are hosted on totally different domains, such as when you're using a 3rd party player and hosting solution and it doesn't seem to make any difference with regards to getting good video results.

[Ryan-Ricketts]

Thanks, Phil! I really appreciate your insights.