I don't have much experience configuring IIS web applications so I'd like some advice on how best to set stuff up. I've installed DNN on a test server and it went fine so my questions are more architectural than anything else. I'd appreciate any advice people could give or links to good articles to read discussing this stuff.

Some background:

1. My site is to be run on a third party hosting service running IIS7 (DiscountASP.net for now, but if it matters I'd like the flexibility to change that later).
2. I'd like to use DNN for my main website. I only need a single portal. I suppose it would be nice to be able to run more later, but that's not important.
3. I need to be able to run other applications besides DNN on the same server. These will be ASP.NET or WCF applications.
4. I'd like tthe DNN website to be the default upon entering a simple domain name (i.e. www.xxx.com displays the DNN home page.
5. The resulting DNN website should be as SEO friendly as possible.

Now for some questions:

1. Am I better off installing DNN in the root directory or a subdirectory? The root would seem to be the best way to get DNN to be the www.xxx.com default page. On the other hand installing it into a subdirectory seems cleaner as far as isolating the multiple applications.
2. If DNN is in a subdirectory, what's the best way to get make it respond as default page? I can think of a few possibilities:
   1. A simple redirect in the default page in the root to www.xxx.com/dnn/. This keeps the /dnn/ in the rest of the pages, but responds to the bare domain OK.
   2. Can I set up the portal aliases in some way to get it to omit the /dnn/ in the URL even though that's where it's installed?
   3. Could URL rewriting be used in some way?
   4. Do something kludgy with frames
3. Is there anything I should keep in mind when using DNN along with other web applications on the same server?

Thanks for your input!

Thanks for the advice Jeff.

I really like having DNN in it's own subdirectory to keep it isolated, I just don't care much for the clutter ("/dnn/") in the URL's and was hoping there was nice way to sort of filter it out with out too much pain. Sadly it doesn't sound like there really is.

Thanks again!