Subdirectories vs subdomains
-
Hi SEO gurus
Anyone has input on what's better?
blog.domain.com vs domain.com/blog
store.domain.com vs domain.com/store
etc
I think the subdir (/xyz) will concentrate authority on the same subdomain so should be better? However sometimes it is tidier on the server to maintain online stores or blogs in a separate strucutre so subdomains work better in that sense. I just want to make sure that doesn't affect SEO?
Cheers!
-
Thanks for the responses Yumi, @oznappies & Aaron
-
Sub directories/folders used to be the definite way to go for the most SEO value however things have evened out for the most part. I think sub directories are more user friendly... we are used to the slash... extra periods can get tricky.
-
I've asked this one on here before and have some test sites trialling both ways and the sub-directory gains rank much faster from the root than the sub-domain.
-
in my opinion? definitely subdirectory. and in fact it will still be tidier on the server maintainability ..
For example please consider the following setup
you have your MYDOMAIN.com located at /var/www/html-mydomain
and by using a SUBDOMAIN.MYDOMAIN.COM, you will generally have them at /var/www/html-subdomain-mydomain
it looks tidier as you said it BUT you can achieve exactly the same thing using MOD_REWRITE
so perhaps right now your MYDOMAIN.com/SUB is located at /var/www/html-mydomain/SUB right? you can actually write a .htaccess that whenever user is going to MYDOMAIN.com/SUB it actually load the page under /var/www/html-subdomain-mydomain instead ! (so the server maintainability between using the subdirectory and subdomain will be exactly the same)
a much more technical example , put this inside your .htaccess of your root domain home directory
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^[www\.]*sub-domain-name.domain-name.com [NC] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/sub-domain-directory/.* RewriteRule ^(.*) /sub-domain-directory/$1 [L]
This will cause the following situation
when people go to http://sub-domain-name.domain-name.com/a.html AND http://domain-name.com/sub-domain-directory/a.html
both of them will open your /sub-domain-directory/a.html instead
hope this help
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
-
DNS vs IIS redirection
I'm working on a project where a site has gone through a rebrand and is therefore also moving to a new domain name. Some pages have been merged on the new site so it's not a lift and shift job and so I'm writing up a redirect plan. Their IT dept have asked if we want redirects done by DNS redirect or IIS redirect. Which one will allow us to have redirects on a page level and not a domain level? I think IIS may be the right route but would love your thoughts on this please.
Technical SEO | | Marketing_Today1 -
Which is better Title length vs. keywords?
We run a jobboard. The title tag on a page for a job is often over 70 characters. An example of one would be: " Supplier Quality Inspector (Electrical Manufacturing) Job in Orlando, FL 32809 at Pro Image Solutions | Orlando Jobs!" The company name 'Orlando Jobs!" comes at the end but is also a really good keyword e.g. 'Orlando' and 'Jobs' I am interested in suggestions as to how to make these titles better. For example take off the company name when we go over 70 characters? Move the company name to the front of the title because the company name is also good keywords? I am looking for the best way to handle the issue is all. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | JobBiz0 -
Is there a benefit to Microdata vs. RDFa Lite?
Is there any community consensus about whether Microdata or RDFa Lite is the superior rich-snippet format? I work as a design/front-end-developer and in terms of pure coding, RDFa Lite seems the superior method. It looks to be more flexible and more extensible. The W3C spec is also more mature—it's a W3C Recommendation where Microdata is only a W3C Working Draft—so it's more likely to reach full standardization sooner. Also, because it's a Recommendation it's less likely to change. However, I hear Google "strongly recommends" the use of Microdata. Do they not support RDFa/RDFa Lite? There doesn't seem to be a great deal of discussion on this anywhere so I'm tempted to think it's sort of irrelevant. I am aware that Schema.org is, supposedly, now supporting RDFa Lite.
Technical SEO | | kongregate0 -
Server Vs Authority
Deciding on whether to go for a Sub directory or CC tld structure. So the tradeoff would be one server location (which can affect local rankings if the server is outside the country) VS a better passing of link authority. What factor is more important?
Technical SEO | | Tourman0 -
Duplicate content issue index.html vs non index.html
Hi I have an issue. In my client's profile, I found that the "index.html" are mostly authoritative than non "index.html", and I found that www. version is more authoritative than non www. The problem is that I find the opposite situation where non "index.html" are more authoritative than "index.html" or non www more authoritative than www. My logic would tell me to still redirect the non"index.html" to "index.html". Am I right? and in the case I find the opposite happening, does it matter if I still redirect the non"index.html" to "index.html"? The same question for www vs non www versions? Thank you
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Google Webmaster tools vs SeoMOZ Crawl Diagnostics
Hi Guys I was just looking over my weekly report and crawl diagnostics. What I've noticed is that the data gathered on SeoMoz is different from Google Webmaster diagnostics. The number of errors, in particular duplicate page titles, content and pages not found is much higher that what google webmaster tools is represents. I'm a bit confused and don't know which data is more accurate. Please Help
Technical SEO | | Tolod0 -
Page title vs page element
Hello! I'm new to SEO as my question would imply. Can someone show me the difference between a page title and a page element? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | atrenary1 -
Impact on domain when using a subdomain for majority opf site content
Hello, We're looking to use a subdomain for a bookings engine that will also host the majority of our site content as it wil house the details of the courses that we'll be selling online. All content is currently available on www.existingdomain.co.uk A few pages will remain here but the majority will ultimately be hosted on a different IP address under a subdomain: courses.existingdomain.co.uk I am a little concerened about search engine reaction to this content separation. Would this approach dilute the rankings of www.existingdomain.co.uk? Is there anything else we need to be mindful of? We have alternative options if this is a real SEO faux pas. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Urbanfox0