Host a wordpress blog as a folder or external site?
-
I've been speaking to our developers as I want to introduce a blog. My intention is to host the blog as part of our existing site, so the url becomes
I have a personal wordpress blog and I love it, the amount of plugins, themes and ease of use makes it a fantastic platform.
I spoke to my developers and requested if they could install Wordpress within a folder of our existing website. This gives me control to do plugins, custom themes etc. Straight forward I thought, but I didn't get a straight forward reply. They went on that it would require two linux php servers, a load balancer between them, and set up and configuration would take 5 days.
Their day rates are high, so 5 days is a lot of money.
This got me thinking, what if I hosted it externally and linked from our website, so the blog URL would be
This gives me the power to have a wordpress blog for cheap and use all the fantasic plugins to optimise the site (Yoast, Schema plugins etc).
I know for SEO, it's better to host it as part of your existing site, the ranking juice remains in your area and it further helps strengthen the site. But then i'm thinking, if the wordpress stand alone blog works out, it will end up being a great external linker, further boosting my existing site's presense.
Have any of you faced any similar problems? Thoughts?
-
No problem Cyto - there is a lot to consider with this project.
I agree Chris, that is why I would only place a followed link on the homepage of the blog acknowledging the association. If you were to link on the other pages then I would tend to no follow them as you don't want hundreds of links from one of your sites to the other - I have done this successfully previously and this is clear that you are not trying to manipulate rankings. That is why having a blog that is integrated on your own site has the greater potential in terms of gaining links as mentioned, but there are the other factors to take into consideration too..
-
Another point I might add. Make sure that you post regularly on your blog, whether your blog is internally or externally. I recently tested this and found if I post at least once per week on a regular basis, within seconds my post is immediately indexed and searchable. This is, of course, that you have an active sitemap that pings the search engines when a change is made to your site. There are several good wordpress sitemap plugins that do this for you.
For longer tail titles, they are usually on the first page immediately and in the top 3 positions.
-
Just be careful that Google doesn't pick up the large number of follow links from your blog site to your main site as being manipulative. The last thing you want to do is pick up an unnatural links warning if / when the Google algorithm takes a dislike to hundreds of links pointing from a blog site that you own to another site that you own.
-
Thanks Matt,
You raised a good point I forgot, which is the backlinks. If I host this externally and it proves to be a hit, then I could start to get some highly valued backlinks. Is it worth getting these for my site, rather than the blog..hmm, thinks to ponder.
Your point about my audience is also a valid one. It's something I need to think, whether our customers are more likely to read and comment if our company is hosting the blog
Great food for thought and really helpful
-
Obviously as you say making it part of your existing site would be ideal helping to further strengthen your sites authority with the links that you pick up. However setting your blog up as a standalone site could still work well and help drive traffic to your site. You may even find that you can encourage more guest posters if your site is standalone helping to build interaction and setting your self up as an authority/influencer in the niche. Linking between the two shouldn't be a problem as I have done the same with previous sites in the past with success as it was a natural think to link between the two.
So the long and short is that you could make this tactic work for you, you just have to weigh up whether the extra spend adding it to your site would be worth the potential links and added authority your site is likely to gain or not? Obviously as a separate site that links to your existing one you are only getting one linking root domain, whereas there is the potential to pick up numerous to your existing site if the blog is part of it and if you do the blog well and market it...
Also think whether it would work better to be standalone or part of your site from your current audiences perspective? Are more people likely to read and comment if it was seen and branded as a separate entity or part of your existing setup?
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
-
Google Penalty due to external links
On Sep 3, we got a Manual Action by Google: unnatural links to your site Immediately we arranged to have all those links the rel="nofollow" atttributes, these were links set by our customers since we are hosting providers. We sent a reconsideration request to Google on Sep 8 and this is their answer:
Link Building | | netbuilder
We’ve reviewed the reconsideration requestfor xxxx and modified its status, but we still believe that content on your site or links to your site are outside our quality guidelines. No more info provided. - We double checked everything but could not find anything else that could harm us so we asked Google (in a new reconsideration request sent on Sep 11 to provide us some samples. On Sep 24 Google answers with a sample of 3 sites which contains links to us. After verification, all the external links to us have the rel="nofollow" attribute !! Today the manual action is not anymore a side-wide one but a partial one and applies to unnatural links--impact links. So it seems that we need to physically have those links removed? As well I checked https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604772?ctx=MAC and he does not refer at all about setting the rel="nofollow" attribute, Looks like Google wants the full monopoly on text links.0 -
Directory listing and open site explorer
As per my previous post regarding my new client. I am dissecting all the previous seo companies docs and basically there are hundreds of directory listings on paper however site explorer does not show any. my question is this does site explorer not list directories site or are they worthless?
Link Building | | Shuffled0 -
Blogs
I am thinking of starting a couple off site blogs for myself. 1 I might share some client information and link building and the other would be for me to rant. I was thinking about doing a wordpress or blogger blog, someone recommended Tumblr. Anyone have any suggestions?
Link Building | | ClickIt0 -
Backlinks In Blogs
Hello! A direct competitor of my has a ton of backlinks exact anchor text on their inner pages coming from blogger blogs. How can they get away with this? Are they using different C blocks? Or are they paying for these links? The anchor text is Not anywhere in any of the blogs but it the side/bar colomn which follow through the entire site, so when I analyze the link anchor text OSE show ups several different pages from the same blog. Any help would be Greatly Appreciated!!!!! Thanks
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Press Release Sites
Do Press Releases sites still worth to engage in terms of link building and domain authority building? I heard they don't deliver link authority anymore? If they they still do, Which top 10 free and paid site would you recommend? What is the up-to-date link building method would you recommend? Thank you very much!
Link Building | | DigitalJungle1 -
Linking strategy between my own sites
Hi, I have one main site, let's call it food.com I also have 10 smaller sites, let's call them mexicanfood.com, indianfood.com, italianfood.com etc food.com is on its own separate dedicated server the 10 smaller sites are all on a shared IP in hostgator I don't want Google to think that I have created the 10 sites for only purpose of creating links to each other. So, would you recommend that all those 10 sites link to each other? or should there be no interlinking within those 10 same IP domains? What about linking from those 10 sites to my main site? How should I structure my own backlinks not to get penalized by Google ?
Link Building | | limens0 -
Blog commenting
Is this still a good way of getting backlinks? I do not plan on making it my only method. Most of my backlinking is done through content creation, press releases, and guest blogging. But looking for some variety in there that can be done quicker. Is it even worth the time or are the links too spammy now? If I did I would actually hand build the links and comment to the article.
Link Building | | webfeatseo1 -
Getting into DMOZ for my coaching site
Hello, Before I submit to DMOZ, I'm wondering if my site is one that would get indexed: www.bobweikel.com Also, if you have any hints beyond what I can read at DMOZ I'd really appreciate it. I don't want to submit and then after several months get rejected.
Link Building | | BobGW0