Blog.yoursite.com or yoursite.com/blog/?
-
Rand made the following post in 2009. In July of 2013 I question whether this is still best practice. Obviously, much has changed in our industry in four-and-a-half years!
"...if you're seeking to maximize your ranking ability for a given piece of content, it's my personal belief that you should, most of the time, keep it on 1 subdomain under 1 root domain (but feel free to use subfolders as it makes sense). Starting a blog? I almost always recommend yoursite.com/blog over blog.yoursite.com. Want to launch a new section of content? Use yoursite.com/newstuff rather than newstuff.yoursite.com."
Source: http://moz.com/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
-
This is a very typical question that has been answered many times. Go with subfolders. Unless for some security reasons, it's better to go with subfolders.
-
With all other things being equal, I'd say it still stands true and Rand makes it clear that that's his personal opinion. It is rarely if ever possible to look at a situation in the wild where all things are equal but one. Content on your site is an important way to get deep links to your domain, yet hosting content off site is important for networking. Your best ranking sites are always a combination of both.
-
From what I gathered on the same topic, that still stands. I have read here and in many other places , that blog.yoursite.com would need to get Optimized as it were a brand new site. This is why I always stick to subfolders instead of subdomains for my personal sites.
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
-
Hidden Text w/ Java Script _ Is it Bad?
Just came across an article that stated that Google is looking negatively at sites that attempt to hide text or use javascripts to expand text on websites. We are about to launch our new website and believe we are using this technique but im not certain if what we are doing will hurt us. Our website tends to be a little heavy on the text so used a "read more" scrpit that will expand when clicked on. Three sections that use this on the new website Take a look and let me know your thoughts http://joomplateshop.com/demos/catdi.com/
Web Design | | ChopperCharlie0 -
Wordpress Blog for Magento Store?
Magento is fantastic for e-commerce although the blog capabilities are limited and our web development fees are just ongoing. I have great experience with wordpress sites and I don't have a bad word to say about the CMS, there are plugins available for everything you possibly need to develop the blog. Would it be a good idea to integrate a wordpress blog for our e-commerce store? To keep both the transactional website and the blog on the same domain, but have a different style for the blog so we're not trying to 'sell' to people looking for home improvement advice and DIY guides, our main priority with the blog is to grow the website authority.
Web Design | | Jseddon921 -
How to add author avatar to my blog
hi i have a blog but i cant seem to see an option where i can add author avatar on the blog post. any idea how to do that? im using a wordpress site.
Web Design | | andzon0 -
Image with 100% width/height - bad ranking?
Hi, we have some articles like this: http://www.schicksal.com/Orakel/Freitag-13 The main image has a width of 100% and a height of 100%. Today, I've discovered that GWT Instant Preview has some troubles with rendering the page. We have CSS rules to deliver the image with the right dimensions. If a bot like google is not sending any screen height / width we assume the screen size is 2560x1440. Does this harm the ranking of the page? (Content starts below the fold/image) What is a "default" screen size for google? How do they determine if something is "above the fold"? Any tips or ideas? Best wishes, Georg.
Web Design | | GeorgFranz0 -
Can multiple domains compete with one another if they have the same/similar content?
Could an ecommerce site with a .co.nz nd .com.au domain compete with one another and hard organic rankings if the content of the pages are the same? All the links would be identical (apart from .co.nz or .com.au) the product descriptions, pages titles etc... would all be identical or similar (our page titles are ever so slightly different). Could this be hurting us? Thanks in advance ^ Paul
Web Design | | kevinliao0 -
Is it bad to have /index.php at the end of a uri?
Is it bad for SEO if traffic is directed to "http://www.example.com/someuri/index.php" instead of "http://www.example.com/someuri/" and would it be works setting up a redirect rule at htaccess level?
Web Design | | NoisyLittleMonkey1 -
Site structure and blog tags for local with five locations
I have a client who has five locations. Their current web site was structured very well for the pre-penguin and Panda world. However it does not seem to do as well after these changes. I believe it would serve them both with their customers as well as on Google if they localized the site for each location. Currently all the content on the site if focused on one location that is in the largest metro. On the content side we have a plan to produce local content and blogs for each location. My questions are how to go about structuring the site map and blogs to provide the most local juice. I was also wondering how to properly mark up a site with a main trunk and five local branches. I am also trying to figure out how to structure the tags on the blog. On the site map itself I was planning on maintaining all the content as well as the older blogs in the main trunk of the web site. Under this trunk there is a locations page that currently goes to five pages that simply have an address as well as a bulletin board of upcoming events. The blog is directly off the main page with no tie to any location. Here are my thoughts on what I think we should do: I believe we should create a mini web site starting at the location page that has specific content and navigation related to each location. That the content should focus on the specifics of that area and what would serve that clientele the best. We should add to each branch location based on the key words and competition in that area. The blog off the main web site should continue to house the general categories that are already there as well as any other general posts. I think we should add a link to each store page with a location specific blog in each mini location site. Each mini location site should have it's own blog with specific blogs targeted towards the local market. This local blog would also feed in the general blogs from the "trunk" as they are posted. Relating back to my original questions: is what I outlined the right approach or is there a more effective way to do this? Is there any special mark up I should do to tell the directories what to do? How do I structure the tags for the blog? I was thinking of a structure like this: General blog/category/subject under the main structure : local blog/category/subject Any ideas of input on this? Ron
Web Design | | Ron_McCabe1 -
Question #1: Does Google index https:// pages? I thought they didn't because....
generally the difference between https:// and http:// is that the s (stands for secure I think) is usually reserved for payment pages, and other similar types of pages that search engines aren't supposed to index. (like any page where private data is stored) My site that all of my questions are revolving around is built with Volusion (i'm used to wordpress) and I keep finding problems like this one. The site was hardcoded to have all MENU internal links (which was 90% of our internal links) lead to **https://**www.example.com/example-page/ instead of **http://**www.example.com/example-page/ To double check that this was causing a loss in Link Juice. I jumped over to OSE. Sure enough, the internal links were not being indexed, only the links that were manually created and set to NOT include the httpS:// were being indexed. So if OSE wasn't counting the links, and based on the general ideology behind secure http access, that would infer that no link juice is being passed... Right?? Thanks for your time. Screens are available if necessary, but the OSE has already been updated since then and the new internal links ARE STILL NOT being indexed. The problem is.. is this a volusion problem? Should I switch to Wordpress? here's the site URL (please excuse the design, it's pretty ugly considering how basic volusion is compared to wordpress) http://www.uncommonthread.com/
Web Design | | TylerAbernethy0