Does using a sub-domain lessen the effectiveness of your main domain?
-
For example a website without a blog and is a simple html site with no blogging capabilities. We go out to Blogger or Wordpress and set up the blog portion of the website using something like blog.yourdomain.com. Does this make a difference SEO wise? Is is more effective to be sure that you are using the main domain and not a sub-domain? I have heard both sides before but can't seem to find the concrete answer. Thanks for any advise out there.
-
Actually it's a bit more complex than Rafi explains.
If the main site is an ecommerce site (sells products), it's okay to have the blog on the main site unless you end up with a high volume of content on the blog that can weaken the "purchase" intent of the main site. In that case, the blog on a sub-domain is actually somewhat better because it separates the "informational" intent out and can in turn build up a stronger authority signal as "informational" as a sub-domain. But only if you drive a lot of traffic, engagement and links to the sub-domain.
If the topic is isolated to a niche topic not generally strong on the main site, that's another valuable reason for the sub-domain path. Again, by isolating it within a sub-domain you're preventing dilution of the topical focus of the main site. That also applies if you have products or services that you can build up enough content within that niche to justify an entire sub-domain.
If the main site is informational and the blog is informational, and there is a lot of cross-topical relationshps, it's best to keep the blog as a folder/directory within the main site - in this scenario you get more value by going this route because of the commonality of intent and topical focus.
-
Hi there,
Nothing makes a difference from an SEO standpoint unless you have good content in it. So, if you host a blog on your domain with good and relevant content that complements or goes hand-in-hand with your domain's theme or line of business, it would definitely add up to the strength of your domain overall going forward. Though its a sub-domain, treat it such that it is an entirely different domain, optimize it the way you would do any other domain. Personally, I would host the blog on my domain itself so that I don't run in to the weird world of cross linking problems especially when its hosted on the same IP address that my domain is hosted on. So if its a business need to have your blog separately, its better to go with a dedicated IP and also make sure it belongs to a different class C IP. We faced issues related to cross linking no matter how clean we tried to maintain them both. Please note that this is purely out of my experience.
Best regards,
Devanur Rafi.
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
-
How to use Rich Snippets?
Hi there! I have been hearing a lot about Rich Snippets lately but I don't really know how they work. Are they a very important factor to consider for SEO? I would love to know your thoughts about this. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lucywrites0 -
Does having a different sub domain for your Landing Page and Blog affect your overall SEO benefits and Ranking?
We have a domain www.spintadigital.com that is hosted with dreamhost and we also have a seperate subdomain blog.spintadigital.com which is hosted in the Ghost platform and we are also using Unbounce landing pages with the sub domain get.spintadigital.com. I wanted to know whether having subdomain like this would affect the traffic metric and ineffect affect the SEO and Rankings of our site. I think it does not affect the increase in domain authority, but in places like similar web i get different traffic metrics for the different domains. As far as i can see in many of the metrics these are considered as seperate websites. We are currently concentrating more on our blogs and wanted to make sure that it does help in the overall domain. We do not have the bandwidth to promote three different websites, and hence need the community's help to understand what is the best option to take this forward.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vinodh-spintadigital0 -
Lower quality new domain link vs higher quality repeat domain link
First time poster here with a dilemma that head scratching and spreadsheets can't solve! I'm trying to work out whether to focus on getting links from new domains or to nurture relationships with the bigger sites in our business and get more links. Of the two links below which does the community here think would be more valuable a signal to Google? Both would be links from within relevant text/post copy. Link 1. Site DA 30. No links currently from this domain. Link 2. Site DA 60. Many links over last 12 months already from this domain. I suspect link 1 but given the enormous disparity in ranking power am I correct?! Thanks for any considered opinions out there! Matthew
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mat20150 -
Community inside the domain or in a separate domain
Hi there, I work for an ecommerce company as an online marketing consultant. They make kitchenware, microware and so on. The are reviewing their overall strategy and as such they want to build up a community. Ideally, they would want to have the community in a separate domain. This domain wouldn't have the logo of the brand. This community wouldn't promote the brand itself. The brand would post content occassionally and link the store domain. The reasoning of this approach is to not interfere in the way of the community users and also the fact that the branded traffic acquired doesn't end up buying at the store I like this approach but I am concerned because the brand is not that big to have two domains separated and lose all the authority associated with one strong domain. I would definitely have everything under the same domain, store and community, otherwise we would have to acquire traffic for two domains. 1. What do you think of both scenarios, one domain versus two? Which one is better? 2. Do you know any examples of ecommerce companies with successful communities within the store domain? Thanks and regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | footd0 -
Domain Forwarding for SEO
Hey guys, I recently created a new website for a client who was ranking #1 for the term "jupiter obgyn" but they have now dropped down to #4. This happened because their old home page was at www. instead of just jupiterobgyn.com. When you type in the www. version, it does take you to the root domain but it's not carrying the old PA! The www. version of the page had a 22 PA and the new root domain hosted page is a 1. How can I fix it so that "link juice" carries over? Is this something i need to do in 1and1 (their web host) or within Wordpress? Thanks!!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Tips do join 2 domains
I would like to move all my old domain content ( dicasdogoogle.com.br) with more than 1200 tutorials pages to a new one (seomartin.com)... and then unify them. I´m using wordpress in both but the permalinks are different... Any tips 4 me folks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoMartin10 -
Help with Effective Meta Description
Can someone give me a sample of an effective meta description tag? All of the best practice stuff I read doesn't talk about how to raise CTR. It seems to me that this is a neglected area of SEO, and we want to do this right. Obviously, we will need to test. For example, my main home page keyword is "IT Support" Things I might want to put in the tag: Free Network Assessments 100% Risk Free Trials "Relentless IT Support" (Major Theme) 30 Years of Experience (since 1984) Eliminate your IT Support Headaches Forever (Too long) Call to action? BTW, Thanks to everyone for your help. This is a great community. Solid advice from experts. Here's an example of what I would create Relentless IT Support Since 1984. Trust and Accountability. 100% Risk Free Trials. Contact us today for Free IT Assessment.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CsmBill0 -
Has Anyone Used Boostability?
Looking into Boostabilty as an option for doing SEO for our clients, will still keep SEOmoz and will still be doing SEO for our own company. Has anyone used it or heard things about it? I am very skeptical when it comes to outsourcing SEO and when it comes to any kind of automated SEO but thought I'd ask if anyone had thoughts on it. Thanks, Holly
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hwade0