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Choose either Subdirectory or Subdomain for the final domain of your airTRFX pages
*This section is usually reviewed and completed by: IT and/or Systems Management/SSL
All airTRFX pages are hosted on PROS servers, but the final domain under which they will be presented to users will belong to the airline. Once the airTRFX pages are set up in production, you will have two options to choose from for the final domain: Subdirectory or Subdomain.

Key differences between a Subdirectory and a Subdomain:

URL

Subdirectory: https://www.airline.com/en-us/

Subdomain: https://flights.airline.com

Technical Definition

A subdirectory is part of the core site URL that houses a specific subset of content.

Subdomains are indicated by the section to the left of the root URL and are typically used if there is content that is distinct from the rest of the core site.

Implementation

Subdirectory: Reverse-Proxy connected to PROS servers

Subdomain: Create subdomain and point CNAME record to PROS sub-domain

SEO Considerations

Subdirectory:

  • Quicker transfer of domain authority and page authority; less interlinking required
  • Reduced need for 301 redirects and heavy interlinking

Subdomain:

  • Slower transfer of domain authority
  • Requires more ongoing SEO execution, i.e. 301 redirect, interlinking strategy, link-building efforts

IT Resource Commitment / Implementation Speed

Subdirectory: Low / Fast

Subdomain: Lowest / Fastest

Preferred Method: Subdirectory Implementation

1. Better transfer of Domain Authority and Page Authority (also known as SEO Value) from the root domain and homepage to the internal pages.

2. Proven increase in keyword rankings due faster flow of Page Authority to new pages.
3. Provides airlines more control over incoming traffic / cache rules and security.

4. Assists in content consolidation strategy with other marketing channels and department.

5. Brand and root domain consistency

Next Steps

Subdirectory: If the pages on your core site domain are currently delivered through a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and you would like to implement airTRFX on https://www.airline.com/, please click the Subdirectory button below to proceed to the subdirectory implementation survey:

Choose Subdirectory

Subdomain: If you are not actively using a CDN on your core site, PROS recommends to proceed with the subdomain implementation in order to avoid performance impacts due to latency issues.

Please click the Subdomain button to fill out the subdomain implementation survey:

Choose Subdomain

airTRFX Subdirectory Implementation

You have decided to implement the airTRFX pages as part of the https://www.airline.com/ page infrastructure. The following information outlines the requirements and considerations for this implementation method.

A reverse proxy will be set up on your Content Delivery Network (CDN) to communicate with the PROS servers and serve the right content to users. Three distinct reverse proxy rules will be required for the implementation.

Rule 1: Main Rule for Template Pages

Example: https://www.airline.com/en-us/

  • The language country-market site edition /ll-cc/ follows directly behind the TLD (.com).
  • The URL slug follows the site edition. Being on the top-level, this method has the most direct SEO impact and follows Google’s site internationalization best practices for subdirectories with gTLDs.
  • Ensure that reverse proxy rules are configured to https://
  • Instead of hard-coding each language and market, a regular expression rule can provide flexibility when adding new site editions/languages: \/([a-z]){2}-([a-z]){2}\/

Rule 2: Sitemaps.xml files

Example: https://www.airline.com/sitemap_index.xml

  • A reverse proxy rule to redirect requests to the master sitemap.xml file to the airTRFX servers needs to be prepared.
  • The airTRFX system will generate sitemap.xml files for each site edition created. Airline does not have to create separate sitemap.xml files.
  • The airline does not have to add the individual airTRFX sitemap.xml files to their master files, however the airTRFX master sitemap.xml file (sitemap_index.xml) should be added to the domain’s robots.txt file.

Rule 3: Redirect Tool URL

Example: https://www.airline.com/redirect

This rule is not mandatory, but it can be useful for online marketing campaigns. The airTRFX URL redirection tool allows marketers to efficiently create URLs in bulk. The URL using parameters will redirect to the appropriate URL slug within airTRFX.

  • An additional rule to the reverse proxy https://www.airline.com/redirect needs to be created.
  • Ensure that when caching the /redirect, URL parameters (query string) need to be included. If not, the user will always end up on the same page.

Example URL Structure:

In order to ensure that only responses from the airline’s CDN are directed toward PROS servers, a header response authentication token should be used.

PROS will generate the token variable and value.

  • The token does not expire, but can be updated at the airline’s request.
  • The token is required in all header responses.

airTRFX pages are extremely dynamic by nature, so it is best practice to cache the full site for 5 min EXCEPT for the file extensions listed below for the 30-day TTL.

The following rules need to be applied across all devices (desktop, mobile and tablet):

  • 30-day TTL: Bmp|bz2|css|doc|eot|flv|gif|gz|ico|jpeg|jpg|js|less|pdf|png|rtf|swf|woff|svg
  • 5-minute TTL: ALL ELSE (including txt and URLs with no extension)

An airline Point of Contact is required in case a manual cache update is required for emergencies.

airTRFX URLs will be subject to the robots.txt file of the airline’s core site because the pages will now exist on the root domain. The following consideration should be taken into account:

  • The robots.txt file will control indexation and bot directives for airTRFX URLs.
  • The airTRFX /sitemap_index.xml URL should be placed into the file shortly after go-live. PROS will coordinate the timing with you.
Choose Subdirectory

airTRFX Subdomain Implementation

You have decided to implement the airTRFX pages using a subdomain via the CNAME method. The following information outlines the requirements and considerations for this implementation option.

Step by Step Implementation Process

1. PROS Systems Engineer creates a subdomain in AWS (e.g. xx-prod.airtrfx.com)

2. PROS Delivery Manager informs the Customer of the sub-domain created in Step 1.

3. Customer creates a final user-facing subdomain and points it as a CNAME record to PROS’s subdomain (e.g. flights.volaris.com)

In cases where customers own a Wildcard SSL Certificate:

3a. Customer needs to provide to PROS the SSL certificate and the private key.

4. Customer informs PROS Implementation Manager that the CNAME record has been created.

5. PROS Systems Engineer confirms that the CNAME record has been set up properly.

6. PROS installs the SSL certificate in PROS’s CDN.
In cases where customers need to purchase a new SSL certificate:

3b. Customer provides PROS the below CSR information:
  • Is there an existing CSR?
  • When does it expire?
  • Common Name (CN)
  • Organization (O)
  • Organizational Unit (OU)
  • Locality (L)
  • State (ST)
  • Country (C)
4. PROS DevOps team generates the CSR.

5. PROS sends the CSR to the customer.

6. Customer purchases the SSL and sends the certificate to PROS.

7. PROS installs the SSL certificate in PROS’s CDN.
Choose Subdomain
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