For A Corporation With 3 Distinct Business Divisions, Is It Better To Go With 1 Domain & 3 Sub-Domains, 1 Domain & 3 Folders, or 3 Domains for SEO Purposes?
-
Hi, I am working on a project right now for an existing client, we have one domain up and running well, they want to create an 'umbrella' site to cover three current business divisions and roll everything up under that main site, including the existing site on a totally different domain (would migrate over and 301 redirect from current domain). From what I've researched, I am inclined towards one main domain with three sub-domains due to the amount of content for each business division being significantly different enough that it seems to deserve separation from each other.
However, in terms of SEO and maintaining consistent domain authority, would anyone recommend it be better to structure this as just folders/categories falling under the main domain instead of separate sub-domains for each division, and focus keyword targeting on pages tailored to that end within the main domain structure rather than spreading out link-juice to different sub-domains? Thanks!
-
Marcus -
Hi, thanks for the helpful considerations, I certainly agree it seems to be much simpler to keep it all as one and ensure a clean hierarchy with breadcrumbs for nav and so on. Perhaps that may yet be the best way to go, I will definitely keep your points in consideration as I discuss with the client!
- Dan
-
Hey Daniel
I am not sure there is ever a single right or wrong answer in these situations as there are just so many moving parts.
I tend to lean towards a single site as, well, it's a single site so just one site to maintain and focus on. But, we have to consider the differences in the business areas and if one area is airplanes and the other is icecream then... maybe the differences are just too pronounced.
I think a helpful way to decide is to consider the likely users and audience for the site(s).
- Who is the site for? What do our typical users look like?
- Do people understand that A is the parent company of X, Y & Z
- Is it going to work for users best as one site or three or does it not really matter
- Who is going to maintain the site and add content?
- Are there any business reasons to have separate sites?
From a pure SEO perspective, three sites would likely give you more scope with each site being truly focused on it's core area, but that comes with the burden of much more work.
With a single site everything is simplified and as long as we ensure we have a very sensible structure and a good clean hierarchy then we should be able to make it easy for a user to navigate and understand where they are within the site and for Google to understand the three different and distinct areas.
I am thinking bread crumbs, URLs, consistent page titles etc.
URL: www.example.com/airplanes/
Breadcrumb: Home > Airplanes
Page Title: Airplanes - Example.comURL: www.example.com/icecream/
Breadcrumb: Home > Icecream
Page Title: Ice Cream - Example.comURL: www.example.com/underpants/
Breadcrumb: Home > Underpants
Page Title: Underpants - Example.comIt's all too easy to overcomplicate things and certainly three or even four sites is way more complicated than one. Just remember your users, consider how they may arrive at the site and make sure the structure, breadcrumbs, page names, page titles and everything else all create a consistent experience.
Likewise, ensure that the homepage makes it very easy for people to get to where they need to be (think signposts).
Who knows as well, there may be opportunity to cross sell in having the three businesses on one site and certainly additional marketing like email marketing, analytics, PPC etc all creates extra work to manage effectively on several sites compared to a single site.
If this was me I would be gunning for a single site but with a serious consideration of the pros, cons and any problems or opportunities that may make one or three a better choice.
So, not an answer as such, but maybe something to get you thinking along the right lines.
Hope it helps!
Marcus
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
-
Show new mobile site to 60% users & old mobile site to 40% users
Hi, We are planning to show new mobile site to 60% users & old mobile site to 40% users. We will show the old site to google crawler. Our old site has some interlinking through footer & content whereas the new site does not has it. We wanted to do this since our new site does not supports some browsers. Will there be an issue with Google on showing the site like this. The mobile site & desktop site will have same url across devices & browsers. Regards
Web Design | | vivekrathore0 -
Will keyword optimization for a landing page impact SEO for subsequent pages?
For example, if I optimize keyword “pleurx” really well on our landing page, I'd like to know if subsequent
Web Design | | Todd_Kendrick
pages linking back to that landing page will rank higher than before for “pleurx”
even if “pleurx” wasn't optimized on the subsequent pages. Thanks! -Andrew0 -
Confluence and SEO
I think this is a difficult question so apologies in advance and any help would be appreciated! We currently have a large amount of support center content sitting on our main pages which we don’t think is very effective (mainly basic how to guides). We think it is difficult for visitors to understand and the UI is very poor. In order to solve this we’re currently moving this content onto a subdomain using Confluence, a wiki based team collaboration tool (from a company called Atlassian). What we’re planning on doing is very much like what Atlassian themselves have done on this page: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/ALLDOC/Atlassian+Documentation What are the SEO issues / dangers that I need to consider before moving this content? I’m assuming that as this content will still be on the same domain then we can minimise link equity / authority loss by setting up re-directs to the new content. Also, has anyone had any experience of using Confluence and whether individual pages can be optimised for SEO? I notice that there are lots of add-ins that can be used, one of which is an SEO add-on which allows you to customise things like meta description tags.
Web Design | | RG_SEO0 -
Sites went from page 1 to page 40 + in results
Hello all We are looking for any insight we can get as to why all (except 1) of our sites were effected very badly in the rankings by Google since the Panda updates. Several of our sites londonescape.com dublinescape.com and prague, paris, florence, delhi, dubai and a few others (all escape.com urls) have had major drop in their rankings. LondonEscape.net (now.com (changed after rank drop) ), was ranked between 4th & 6th but is now down around 400th and DelhiEscape.net and MunichEscape.com were both number 1 for several years for our main key words We also had two Stay sites number 1 , AmsterdamStay and NewYorkstay both .com ranked number 1 for years , NewYork has dropped to 10th place so far the Amsterdam site has not been effected. We are not really sure what we did wrong. MunichEscape and DelhiEcape should never have been page 1 sites ) just 5 pages and a click thru to main site WorldEscape) but we never did anything to make them number 1. London, NewYork and Amsterdam sites have had regular new content added, all is checked to make sure its original. **Since the rankings drop ** LondonEscape.com site We have redirected the.net to the .com url Added a mountain of new articles and content Redesigned the site / script Got a fair few links removed from sites, any with multiple links to us. A few I have not managed yet to get taken down. So far no result in increased rankings. We contacted Google but they informed us we have NOT had a manual ban imposed on us, we received NO mails from Google informing us we had done anything wrong. We were hoping it would be a 6 month ban but we are way past that now. Anyone any ideas ?
Web Design | | WorldEscape0 -
SEO and Modal Windows
Hi all, My website has a Login and Join Us option on every page in the site. Each Login and Join Us window pops up as a modal window. In other words, the user must interact with it before they are taken somewhere else (whether they close it or fill it in). It has come to my attention that this is being counted as duplicate content. Is there any way around this? It's calling duplicate content on practically the whole website. Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | Info12340 -
Why is this page removed from Google & Bing indices?
This page has been removed from indices at Bing and Google, and I can't figure out why. http://www.pingg.com/occasion/weddings This page used to be in those indices There are plenty of internal links to it The rest of the site is fine It's not blocked by meta robots, robots.txt or canonical URL There's nothing else to suggest that the page is being penalized
Web Design | | Ehren0 -
Subdomain vs Sub Folder
Hi. This is my first question here guys and gals so please be gentle. We are creating a town based website that will hold news, events, articles and relevant local content. We are also creating a business directory that will be part of this. My question relates to an issue we have regarding how the directory will be treated as part of the "network". Although we aren't 100% sure on the domain name yet, we want the directory to be found as easily as the domain itself. Even better, if the two could be treated seperately but strengthen the overall theme for the domain we'd be in keyword heaven. Therefore in your opinion (hopefully with pro's and con's) which do you think will rank better in Google, Yahoo and Bing (or all three);
Web Design | | rufo
The directory seperate as a subdomain or as a folder within the main domain? So for example - providing we are including links between the two sections and the site is www.sitetown.com Which is better for the directory itself? http://www.sitetown.com/directory http://directory.sitetown.com or you're mad Steve, use a seperate domain altogether www.sitetowndirectory.com I hope you can help, obi-wan, you're my only hope..... PS - seomoz still rocks. Thanks
Steve0 -
Technical SEO Question about TLD combined with SubDomain
I am making a new website but need to figure out the best way to do this in terms of SEO. I would like the website to have functionality of brochure website combined with an online store. My issue is that I will be using software called prestashop for my online store and CMS called MODx to develop my brochure site. (These can not be combined into one CMS). I can create brochure site with MOdx = www.example.com & then from that a subdomain using prestashop for my online store = store.example.com Can I get Google to index these as one site or would I be better off trying to get everything under the TLD. Ideally I would like just one site without subdomain Bacially what I am asking is... What are the effects of having subdomains in terms of SEO? Am I better of having everyhitng under TLD? Can I get Google to view TLD and Sub as one site? Hope this makes sense, thank you.
Web Design | | Socialdude0