Which one is better?
-
I am working on creating new blog. I already had one. I want to add this new topics as subdomain. Now i am confused. Which one will be better for SEO?
subdomain.maysite.com or mysite.com/subdomain
Thanks in advance
-
This quote is from Moz's domain setup guide:
"Since search engines keep different metrics for domains than they do subdomains, it is recommended that webmasters place link-worthy content like blogs in subfolders rather than subdomains. (i.e. www.example.com/blog/ rather than blog.example.com) The notable exceptions to this are language-specific websites. (i.e., en.example.com for the English version of the website)."
I think that quote is pretty compelling towards the idea of subdirectories. But I think the value of subfolders versus directories certainly makes sense especially from a linking, age, and juice perspective. Ultimately, it comes down to you and what you want for the website.
-
I agree with Tim Holmes, here is a detailed explanation why sub-folder are better than sub-domain now.
- Sub-domains are treated as a separate entity now, and they don't add to SEO value of the main domain.
- Any links within the subdomain to the main domain are treated as external links.
- Since links are coming from an external domain but the same IP, this may be treated a low-quality backlink for the main domain, though people are divided over this but it can neutral to negative impact instead of being positive. As search engines would consider this as unnatural linking.
- Sub-Folders are treated as part of the domain and pass all the SEO value when connecting internally.
Here is a response from Rand Fishkin to a similar question
Subfolders are the way to go, but they're hard to do for a lot of organizations. Many CMS' (like Hubspot) make it quite challenging to host a Wordpress installation on a subfolder, but subdomains are pretty easy. Hence, when choosing where to host a blog or a separate content section, many folks go with the easier route rather than the one that requires a lot of technical effort and webdev/engineering time.
However, that doesn't mean that they're not losing out - I'd wager that all of those companies would see a bump if they moved their blogs to a subfolder of the same domain. We see this in example after example when sites invest in it, and you can see plenty of folks discussing their own experiences in the comments of the Moz post you linked to.
I hope this helps, feel free to ask further questions and respond to answer.
Regards,
Vijay
-
This has been banded around so many times, in general I would advocate a sub folder as opposed to sub domain. purely due to the value it adds to your sites main chosen domain, if it were on a sub domain this is where the value would sit and it would not pass any value around as well as it could a sub folder. It is only potentially a small benefit, but a benefit none the less.
A good recent on it was had back on Jan https://moz.com/community/q/the-great-subdomain-vs-subfolder-debate-what-is-the-best-answer
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Using one robots.txt for two websites
I have two websites that are hosted in the same CMS. Rather than having two separate robots.txt files (one for each domain), my web agency has created one which lists the sitemaps for both websites, like this: User-agent: * Disallow: Sitemap: https://www.siteA.org/sitemap Sitemap: https://www.siteB.com/sitemap Is this ok? I thought you needed one robots.txt per website which provides the URL for the sitemap. Will having both sitemap URLs listed in one robots.txt confuse the search engines?
Technical SEO | | ciehmoz0 -
Will doing a 301 redirect for one domain to another give the latter domain the formers links?
I have some websites that I built a few years ago that are still in existence, but I no longer have access to the sites as they weren't hosted by myself. These sites all carry a "Designed by Me" text on the footer with a link to my (now old) website. I have since done 301 redirects on the domain names that are used in the footers of these sites so they link directly to my new site. However, will these websites now show up on Google Webmasters for example as external links to my site?
Technical SEO | | mickburkesnr0 -
What should I do with 10 Similar Domains pointing to one site?
Hello,
Technical SEO | | thealika
I was recently put in charge of one website with about 15 extra Domains. I previously asked if Domain Parking hurts your SEO as duplicate content - and i learned that the answer seems to be yes. My next logical question is:
What should I do with all those EMD, keyword friendly domains? As I understand, 301 redirecting the domains to the root domain is a safe bet, but that means the extra domains will point to the original root domain no mater what comes after the forward slash. So www.ExtraDomain.com/AboutUS will point to www.OriginalDomain.com - is there a way to keep the forward slashes relavent to the content on the original root domain, if so How? Your Advice, Links, and Comments are greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Nikita0 -
Which one should I use Schema.org or Microformats.org
Hi, I would like to know which one is better to use Schema.org or Microformats.org My CMS doesn't support Schema.org attributes, I can only use Microformats.org documentation, but I wanted to knwo if Schema.org is better one, so I will change my CMS and use another one.
Technical SEO | | FisnikSylka0 -
Hi can anyone let me know which is the better server
hi, i am trying to find out which is the better dedicated server and would like your opinion. the first one is Dell PowerEdge 😄 Intel Xeon E3-1220L, 2.2GHz Dual-Core
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-184886
4GB DDR3 RAM
2 x 500GB SATA HDD
Linux/Windows
10000GB Monthly Transfer
Up to 2 IP Addresses
LSI Raid Card and the second one is, Intel Atom 330 1MB L2 Cache 1.6GH 500GBStorage
4GBRAM
10TBBandwidth if you can please let me know the difference and which one is better for speed and for memory for a large site. many thanks0 -
One large site or a few microsites?
Hi, I have a client who runs a professional expo company and wants to redo his website. Right now he has one website that has the following sections: expo company info, wedding show info, electrical wire show info, fishing show info. My question is, when I rebuild the site would it be better to do one site or four microsites?
Technical SEO | | JohnWeb120 -
Redirecting one ecommerce site to another
Hi I'm planning to redirect one large ecommerce site to another. Here's how I was thinking of doing it: crawl both sites with Xenu and export urls to a CSV match urls where possible, redirecting pages from site A to relevant ones in site B all others will be redirected to site B's home page Now, I'm dealing with thousands of URLs here, so any way to make it easier would be great. Could this mean just redirecting all of Site A's pages to Site B's homepage would be worth it? Or does redirecting relevant pages where possible seem the best idea? Thanks guys!
Technical SEO | | neooptic0 -
When moving my ecommerce website from one host to another should I also 301 all my image urls?
I'm going to be 301'ing a lot of pages, but should i also 301 my image URLS? Any other helpful hints would be awesome too, as this will be my first move online ever. We've been with our host 3 years. Thanks! Paul Serra STbands.com, Owner
Technical SEO | | Hyrule0