It is pretty rare to see a sub-domain name used in TV advertising but yesterday while watching a little TV, not only did a company use a sub-domain name in their TV ad, they used a hyphen in the sub-domain to boot!

Most people get confused with just a hyphen in a regular domain name and can often simply forget it when typing in the address. Most people get confused when they see a sub-domain name used because they simply do not know what it is! Add the two together and I think this may be the craziest advertised domain name I have seen to date!

In the companies defense, Can-Am® is one of Bombardier Recreational Products Inc. brand names but the TV spot that I saw was for a Can-Am Spyder Roadster (a 3 wheel motorcycle). If you were to visit the site advertised and click on the Spyder, the domain name is spyder.brp.com which is a little better of a domain name to use in the IMO.

Using a matching domain name to the product being advertised would be the best domain name to use in the ad. Since the product is called the Spyder Roadster, I would use SpyderRoadster.com and simply redirect that domain name traffic to spyder.brp.com which is the actual product.  SpyderRoadster.com is much easier to remember even with the odd spelling of spider. Owning SpiderRoadster.com would be wise as well to cover any typo’s and simply forward that domain name to spyder.brp.com as well. Using the specific domain name SpyderRoadster.com also allows for better advertising tracking for specific campaigns.

People get confused with all the dot’s (.) when a sub-domain name is usded and is likely one of the reasons sub-domains are not advertised all that much. People forget to include the dot’s when typing, they hyphen and dot’s in this case etc. It can also make it a bit harder for most to pick out the actual domain name. In this case, BRP.com is the actual domain name. To the left of the domain name is the Sub-Domain, Can-Am. .

www. is the most common and used sub-domain. Add in the fact that many people add in www. when typing in a domain name they see and now you get a double sub-domain www.can-am.brp.com. Can-Am has things set up properly but often times if one were to add www. to an advertised domain name with a sub-domain, it will often not work (resolve). Webmasters forget the fact that word.domainname.com and www.word.domainname.com are two different domains.

I would strongly advise NOT to advertise using a sub-domain name. They are very confusing to most consumers. If they are confused, it is more likely they will not visit the site. It is good to use sub-domain names on your site for SEO reasons and a better user experience when they are on the site but stick with an easier to remember and more common domain name to get your customers to the page you wish.