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A microsite is an individual web page or a small cluster of pages which are meant to function as a discrete entity (such as an iFrame) within an existing
website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...
or to complement an offline activity. The microsite's main landing page can have its own
domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...
or
subdomain In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is a part of another (main) domain. For example, if a domain offered an online store as part of their website example.com, it might use the subdomain shop.example.com . ...
.


Usage

Microsites are typically used in
web design Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...
to add a specialized group of information, either editorial or commercial. Such sites may be linked in to a main site or not or taken completely off a site's server when the site is used for a temporary purpose. The main distinction of a microsite versus its parent site is its purpose and specific cohesiveness as compared to the microsite's broader overall parent website. Microsites used for editorial purposes maybe a page or group of pages that, for example, might contain information about a holiday, an event or similar item which gives more detailed information than a site's general content area may provide. A community
organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived f ...
may have its main site with all the organization's basic information but creates a separate, temporary microsite to inform about a particular activity, event, or similar. Often, microsites will be used for editorial purposes by a commercial business to add editorial value. For example, a retailer of party goods may create a microsite with editorial content about the history of
Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observan ...
or some other holiday or event. The commercial purpose of such editorial microsites, (beyond driving product sales), may include adding value to the site's visitors for branding purposes as well as providing editorial content and keywords allowing for greater chances of
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
inclusion. Normally, microsites do not contain web applications. Microsites may be used for purely commercial purposes to create in-depth information about a particular product, service or as editorial support towards a specific product, such as describing a new technology. A
car manufacturer This is a list of notable automobile manufacturers with articles on Wikipedia by country. It includes companies that are in business as well as defunct manufacturers. Only companies that have articles here are included. A Algeria * SNVI ...
, for example, may present a new
hybrid vehicle A hybrid vehicle is one that uses two or more distinct types of power, such as submarines that use diesel when surfaced and batteries when submerged. Other means to store energy include pressurized fluid in hydraulic hybrids. The basic princi ...
and support the sales presentation with a microsite specific to explaining hybrid technology. In a large corporation, the various business units may own their specific content in a microsite within the corporations main website. With the prevalence of keyword contextual advertising, (more commonly referred to as
pay per click Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. Pay-per-click is usually ...
or PPC), microsites may be created specifically to carry such contextual advertising. Or along a similar tactic, they're created in order to specifically carry topic-specific, keyword-rich content with the goal of having search engines rank them highly when search engine users seek such content topics. A microsite, however, will most likely not lower PPC cost, because it will most likely not improve
Quality Score Quality Score is a metric used by Google, Yahoo! (called ''Quality Index''), Facebook (called Ad Quality) and Bing that influences the ad rank and cost per click (CPC) of ads. To determine the position of the ad on a search engine, each ad is ...
. There are nine factors that go into Quality Score, one of them is the quality of the landing page (how relevant the content is, transparent it is, and the ease of navigation). This factor does not look at the entire website (which can be a common misconception on Quality Score), only the page chosen to land people on from their search query. Thus, it does not matter if the website covers a broad spectrum of items, or only one, it matters if that one page's content is specific to that person's search. And considering the other eight factors that go into Quality Score, the main website should typically result in better Quality Scores than a microsite.


Criticism

Microsites have been criticized by security expert Rich Baldry who claimed they cause confusion, waste money, and can damage reputation.
When special-purpose domains for campaign microsites appear, it becomes ..confusing. At best, people might ignore the microsite domain, keeping themselves safe but making the marketing dollars a waste. At worst, the protection and reputation offered by use of known domains is lost and people end up infected the next time they follow an unknown domain.


See also

* Landing page *
Web presence A web presence is a location on the World Wide Web where a person, business, or some other entity is represented (see also web property and point of presence). Examples of a web presence for a person could be a personal website, a blog, a profil ...


References

* Ann Handley
Microsite User Experience Design
'. Entrepreneur Magazine. Posted on 2 January 2012. * Unknown
Use a Microsite to Build Your Business
'. Posted on 14 October 2011. * Earl & Thompson
Sales Lead Generation and Content Generation: Is content still king?
'. Posted on 21 October 2010. * Jenna Yim
Microsite User Experience Design
', 2010. * Melissa Campanelli
Marketing with a Microsite
'. Entrepreneur Magazine. Posted on 16 April 2009. * Susan K. Jones
Business-to-business Internet marketing: Seven proven strategies for increasing profits through internet direct marketing
'. Maximum Press, 2008. Pages 117-118. * Brian Quinton
Microsites are Becoming a Macro Idea
''. DIRECT Magazine. Posted on 10 October 2007. * Agentur Bemerkenswer
Landing Page Design
(in German) ;Citations {{Websites template Websites