In Miguel Helft’s tech blog for the New York Times, it was announced today that T-Mobile will be unveiling details of its new, highly anticipated, Google branded mobile phone next week in New York — on September 23, to be precise. The phone will be the first to utilize the Google Android application.

From the article:

The phone itself, which is being manufactured by HTC, is not likely to be available until next month. But top executives from Google, T-Mobile and other companies are expected to unveil details about the phone’s release date, pricing, plans and software at the press conference.

The phone is expected to become a challenger to other high-end phones like Apple’s iPhone and the BlackBerry line of devices made by Research In Motion. Other manufacturers and cellphone carriers are expected to introduce Android-based phones in the coming months.

Google is promoting Android phones as a way to ensure that its services, as well as other services that may use its advertising system, are available on a broad range of mobile phones. But Google also stands to benefit from the popularity of devices like the iPhone, whose PC-like Internet browser has greatly increased the likelihood that its owners will conduct Web searches on their phones.

Google also (probably) stands to benefit from a general sense of dissatisfaction with iPhones among the business community. Although Apple has eased that discontent a bit with the latest release of the model, there’s still a big potential market there that’s looking for an alternative to the consumer-oriented iPhone and the limitations of the BlackBerry (which is often said to have a browser that’s inadequate for high-powered business applications).

What do you think? Are you eagerly awaiting an alternative to your iPhone and/or BlackBerry? Are you anticipating this new phone, or do you think it’s unecessary? (And is anyone else starting to get a bit nervous at the prospect of Google dominating yet another product market?)

Welcome to Part 3 in our instructional series on how to maximize the value of your hosting services via Added Domains, Parked Domains, and Subdomains. Every successful online business should understand how to employ these three assets in order to get the most out of money spent on online infrastructure. If you haven’t already, check out our first two articles in the series on Add-on Domains and Parked Domains.

Today, we’ll explore subdomains. A subdomain is a part of a larger domain name, but with a different prefix. Unlike add-on domains or parked domains, which tend to be completely different domain names altogether, a subdomain retains the identity of the larger domain name, keeping the same basic URL root in place.

Wikipedia describes it best:

In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain. For example, “mail.example.com” and “calendar.example.com” are subdomains of the “example.com” domain, which in turn is a subdomain of the “com” top-level domain (TLD).

So, think of subdomains as subsections of a larger domain name, with the very first part of the URL (after http://) representing the name of the subdomain. For example, Yahoo utilizes this strategy to great effect, with mail.yahoo.com, news.yahoo.com, etc.  Popular online classifieds site Craigslist also implements suddomains as the name of the city for each site (http://sandiego.craigslistorg, http://kansascity.craigslist.org, http://savannah.craigslist.org, etc.).

Subdomains are a great way to establish branding and to focus on separate products or services within that brand. For example, if your website is ABCDEF.com, your “about us” page can be about.ABCDEF.com, your “contact us” page can be contact.ABCDEF.com, your member sign-in page can be members.ABCDEF.com, and on and on. This method is less cumbersome than ABCDEF.com/contact, ABCDEF.com/about, etc., and it’s also easier to build and to navigate.

URL Structure and Search Engine Optimization

For optimum search engine placement, your domain name and URL naming strategy should incorporate your site’s most important keywords. If you decide to use subdomains in your URL structure, keep your website’s main keywords in mind when determining what to name the subdomains users will browse most frequently, and when naming parked or add-on domain name URLs. Remember, when it’s time to name all these extra domains, search engines tend to favor names that are simple and basic.

You should be able to set up and manage add-on domains, parked domains and subdomains from your hosting account or domain registrar control panel. However, as we usually suggest, always consult with your web host before proceeding if you have any doubts.

Recently on the Live Search Blog, Microsoft Program Manager Jeremiah Andrick put the question out there for the entire webmaster community: “What [can we] do to improve our development stack (Windows, IIS, ASP.Net, Silverlight) so they are optimized for SEO by default”?

Andrick goes on to open up the floor to some acknowledged areas of difficulty:

* Bad default settings - What settings are poorly configured by default? What should the correct setting be (e.g., IIS using 302 redirects by default)?

* Too hard - What is possible, but simply too hard to do? If this is done well on another platform, that would be helpful to know as well (e.g., rearchitecting the link structure on a site while not breaking the links of the old site).

* Limited capabilities - Are their capabilities that we just don’t have, but would really make your lives easier as SEO-savvy web developers (e.g., need to have multiple URL entry points into silverlight application)?

* Bugs - What just doesn’t work right today (e.g., URL rewriting in ASP.Net using 302’s to redirect links)?

We have to applaud this effort by the company to open up a dialogue with its customers. Direct feedback of this nature is good for Microsoft, and great for the thousands of people who use its products. And so far, Microsoft personnel have done a solid job of addressing the comments they receive.

So, hey, this is your chance, everyone. We know a lot of you use Microsoft platforms, and this is a great opportunity to let them know what improvements you’d like to see. Click here to check it out for yourself, and take advantage of the info exchange.

Parked domains are just what you might think they are: Domain names you own and have registered, but aren’t currently using. They’re not actively associated with any hosting, website, or email services. They’re out of use, or “parked.”

What are the benefits of domain parking? Usually, a parked domain is a domain that you think may be of value to you or your business in the future, but you aren’t quite at the point when you can (or want to) make use of it. Maybe it’s a brand you want to trademark in the future, or maybe it’s a domain name similar to your business name that you want to keep out of the hands of competitors (or cybersquatters).

So, there are a number reasons why you may want to own a domain name that isn’t associated with a website. Indeed, parked domains are a very common feature throughout the World Wide Web. As it usually happens in real life, though, parking isn’t free. It’ll usually cost you, in the form of a separate fee by a hosting or “parking space” provider.

That fee, however, is usually minimal. You’ll need to check with your hosting provider to see what kind of parked service is available to you, and what it will cost. Also, check out what kind of placeholder the hosting service uses. A placeholder is a simple page put up by the hosting company, usually featuring an “under construction” or “coming soon” sign, to let visitors know that the domain name is taken, but does not yet feature a website.

In the current age of eCommerce, almost all of these parked domain placeholders are “monetized”, meaning that they feature advertisements. Blame that on Google AdSense. Just as it’s revolutionized almost every other aspect of online business, Google is changing the nature of parked domains by turning simple placeholders into a showcase for ads, thereby “monetizing” the parked domain. These ads are typically auto-generated, determined by a search keyword associated with the parked domain name. That search keyword helps bring in visitors using the Google search engine, and these visitors, according to the AdSense business plan, will then (hopefully) click on the ads.

The end result is that a revenue stream, no matter now minimal, is created from what was once simply blank, wasted space. However, there’s some controversy over this practice. Google was even sued earlier this year in a class-action suit claiming that the AdSense ads were ineffective and riddled with errors. Essentially, Google stands accused of charging customers for ads that don’t work. Whether that’s because the ads were faulty, or because the art of directing traffic through parked domains is still too undeveloped to really work, remains to be seen.

Either way, this practice of using parked domains to generate ad revenue is having an enormous impact on the industry as a whole. Some have even speculated that, since “monetizing” amounts to a sort of rudimentary web hosting in and of itself, Google AdSense will eventually bring about the end of domain parking as we know it.

But we’re not quite there yet. And until that day comes, domain parking remains an important fixture of online business, and an almost inevitable part of growing your brand through domain name purchasing.

Next up: Diversifying your base URL with subdomains.

It’s the same with almost any business: Once you taste success, you’ll probably want to expand. And with online business, that usually means adding more sections to your website, or adding new websites altogether.

And, as a smart business manager, you’ll no doubt want to expand your site without having to pay for more hosting services. Luckily, there are several ways to do just that.  Today’s blog entry is the first in a series of three articles to help you better utilize Add-on Domains, Parked Domains, and Subdomains.

Add-on Domains

Sometimes called Hosted Domains, Add-on Domains are domain names located on the same hosting plan as your primary domain name. Just like your main domain name, you own these domains and have to pay for their registration. They can represent a subdirectory on your main site, or they can show a different website altogether. They can also be a type of parked domain. They use the same hosting space and bandwidth as your main hosting service account and are typically managed by the same control panel. (However, even these almost-universal basic facts can sometimes differ among hosting providers.)

The advantage of add-on domains is that you can host more than one website on the same account, saving resources, space, and of course, money. That means, with just one hosting plan, you can create whole new websites under the same account, with completely different identities, styles, keywords, SEO functionality, and so on. Or, if you prefer to brand your main site over a variety of different domain names, you can choose to incorporate a single style and structure throughout all your add-on domains.

It’s your choice. Add-on Domains give you the freedom to maximize the value of your hosting service in the way that works best for you. And, although you have to take extra care that growing traffic among your various add-on domains doesn’t overwhelm your main service’s bandwidth capabilities, this, too, can be seen as a positive factor. After all, if you have that many websites with that much traffic, a second or third hosting plan is probably the best next step in your business plans, anyway. (Or perhaps a larger Professional Grade or eCommerce Optimized hosting plan is now in order.)

Next up: Parked domains and subdomains.