The Great Subdomain vs. Subfolder Debate, what is the best answer?
-
Recently one of my clients was hesitant to move their new store locator pages to a subdomain. They have some SEO knowledge and cited the whiteboard Friday article at https://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-friday.
While it is very possible that Rand Fiskin has a valid point I felt hesitant to let this be the final verdict. John Mueller from Google Webmaster Central claims that Google is indifferent towards subdomains vs subfolders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h1t5fs5VcI#t=50
Also this SEO disagreed with Rand Fiskin’s post about using sub folders instead of sub domains. He claims that Rand Fiskin ran only 3 experiments over 2 years, while he has tested multiple subdomain vs subfolder experiments over 10 years and observed no difference.
http://www.seo-theory.com/2015/02/06/subdomains-vs-subfolders-what-are-the-facts-on-rankings/
Here is another post from the Website Magazine. They too believe that there is no SEO benefits of a subdomain vs subfolder infrastructure. Proper SEO and infrastructure is what is most important.
Again Rand might be right, but I rather provide a recommendation to my client based on an authoritative source such as a Google engineer like John Mueller.
Does anybody else have any thoughts and/or insight about this?
-
I think Mueller's main point may be that if you treat your subdomains separately from your main site, Google will treat them differently as well. For example, if you have three subdomains - www, blog and cloud - but all of them have different navigation, css and limited interlinking and little keyword theme commonality, Google will treat them as separate sites and you will suffer the dreaded subdomain issue.
BUT if you integrate the three domains well - same nav, same look & feel and lots of good contextual anchor text interlinking, Google will treat it as the same site and the subdomain issue will become moot.
Has anyone done any testing with those variables?
-
Yup! All the case studies I showed above (and plenty since) have demonstrated that you can boost traffic by moving from the subdomain to a subfolder.
-
Great thread! What about a situation where a blog already sits on a subdomain (bearing in mind it hasn't been driving a significant amount of traffic as the site is fairly new). My recommendation would be to move to subfolder, would you agree?
Thank you!
-
This is my new favorite quote... "I understand that Google's representatives have the authority of working at Google going for them, but I also believe they're wrong." (Rand Fishkin)
-
Greetings All,
So the debate goes on and I personally think the value of subfolders versus directories certainly makes sense especially from a linking, age and juice perspective. I do notice in most articles they talk about the benefits for subfolders as it relates to blogs. In past tests and studies, you have shed any insight into how this may affect ecommerce as it relates to countries.
We currently have each country on a subdomain and can run it through webmaster tools and geotarget the country however are considering switching to subfolders, based on all the articles we've read. This would in such drive many more links back to each new subfolder assuming the majority of our links are from "www". It would seem to make sense to switch to subfolders and would be especially helpful as new sub-folders were launched.
I was just wondering if the same argument can be made when it comes to ecommerce and country specific sites. Each site (currently different subdomains) uses a different language and currency. Meta and content is different for each. We launched "www" over 15 years ago but in the past 2 years have introduced various subdomains (ie new languages). As we enter into new countries, we are considering switching everything over to subfolders (obviously with 301'ing the subdomains over to the new subfolders so we dont lose all our existing links).
Im assuming since your studies indicate, you'd think this to be a good idea however all the talk has not been so much about countries and ecommerce. Any one have any light or information they can share with regards to the topic??
Thnkxs
-
Hi Rosemary - thankfully, I have data, not just opinions to back up my arguments:
- In 2014, Moz moved our Beginner's Guide to SEO from guides.moz.com to moz.com itself. Rankings rose immediately, with no other changes. We ranked higher not only for "seo guide" (outranking Google themselves) but also for "beginners guide" a very broad phrase.
- Check out https://iwantmyname.com/blog/2015/01/seo-penalties-of-moving-our-blog-to-a-subdomain.html - goes into very clear detail about how what Google says about subdomains doesn't match up with realities
- Check out some additional great comments in this thread, including a number from site owners who moved away from subdomains and saw ranking benefits, or who moved to them and saw ranking losses: https://inbound.org/discuss/it-s-2014-what-s-the-latest-thinking-on-sub-domains-vs-sub-directories
- There's another good thread (with some more examples) here: https://inbound.org/blog/the-sub-domain-vs-sub-directory-seo-debate-explained-in-one-flow-chart
Ultimately, it's up to you. I understand that Google's representatives have the authority of working at Google going for them, but I also believe they're wrong. It could be that there's no specific element that penalized subdomains and maybe they're viewed the same in Google's thinking, but there are real ways in which subdomains inherit authority that stay unique to those subdomains and it IS NOT passed between multiple subdomains evenly or equally. I have no horse in this race other than to want to help you and other site owners from struggling against rankings losses - and we've just seen too many when moving to a subdomain and too many gains moving to a subfolder not to be wary.
-
Hi,
I've not seen any comment from Googlers regarding this debate. I realize I'm keeping this in the Moz-sphere, which isn't quite what you're looking for, but this quote is from Moz's domain setup guide:
"Since search engines keep different metrics for domains than they do subdomains, it is recommended that webmasters place link-worthy content like blogs in subfolders rather than subdomains. (i.e. www.example.com/blog/ rather than blog.example.com) The notable exceptions to this are language-specific websites. (i.e., en.example.com for the English version of the website)."
I think that quote is pretty compelling towards the subdirectory side of this quandry. I also recommend checking out the comments on the Whiteboard Friday link you posted, there is plenty of evidence there as well.
Unfortunately, this debate will probably go on forever until we get definitive word from Google.
-
Can you share some details why you want to "move" the store locator to a subdomain? That makes me think it is already operational in a subfolder at the moment. In general, I would recommend not moving content unless there is a very good reason for it.
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
-
DA vs Relevancy - Trade Off Question
Hey Guys We all know that relevancy largely trumps DA nowadays. What I am wondering is if there is a DA 'level' at which relevancy doesn't really matter - you probably still want a backlink from that site... For example, sites with DA of 100 we probably want backlinks from. So where do you draw the line? What I mean is for a high DA 'non relevant' site, what DA is 'acceptable' where you start to disregard relevancy? I'm thinking something like 70 and above would like some other thoughts... Obviously you would still be building relevant links too, developing content to do so and all that good stuff. I am just wondering what DA I should focus on for building non-relevant links ALONGSIDE relevant links 🙂 Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GTAMP0 -
Two websites vs each other owned by same company
My client owns a brand and came to me with two ecommerce websites. One website sells his specific brand product and the other sells general products in his niche (including his branded product). Question is my client wants to rank each website for basically the same set of keywords. We have two choices I'd like feedback on- Choice 1 is to rank both websites for same keyword groupings so even if they are both on page 1 of the serps then they take up more real estate and share of voice. are there any negative possibilities here? Choice 2 is to recommend a shift in the position of the general industry website to bring it further away from the industry niche by focusing on different keywords so they don't compete with each other in the serps. I'm for choice 1, what about you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rich_Coffman0 -
What is the best way to take advantage of this keyword?
Hi SEO's! I've been checking out webmaster tools (screenshot attached) and noticed that we're getting loads of long tail searches around a search query 'arterial and venous leg ulcers' - on a side note we're a nursing organisation so excuse the content of the search!!! The trouble is that google is indexing a PDF page which we give out as a freebie:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 9868john
http://www.nursesfornurses.com.au/admin/uploads/5DifferencesBetweenVenousAndArterialLegUlcers1.pdf This PDF is a couple of years old and needs updating but its got a few links pointing to it. Ok so down to the nitty gritty, we've just launched a blog:
http://news.nursesfornurses.com.au/Nursing-news/ We have a whole wound care category in which this content belongs, and i'm trying to find the best way to take advantage of the search, so I was thinking: Create an article of about 1000 words Update the PDF and re-upload it to the main domain (not the sub domain news.nursesfornurses.com.au) Attach the PDF to the article on the blog OR would it be better to host this on the blog, and setup a 301 redirect to this page? I just need some advice on how best to take advantage of this opportunity, our blog isn't getting much search traffic at the moment (despite having 300+ articles!!) and i'm looking into how we can change that. I look forward to your response and suggestions. Thanks! qtY64B10 -
What are your best Press release sites currently?
Although Matt Cutts said Press releases are not that great we still find success with PRweb.com. Anybody finding any other sites that work?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tempowebdesign0 -
Local search vs. Organic Listings
Hi ~ I was interested to see if anyone feels there might be an advantage to keeping a business out of Google's Local Search listing area or at least trying to keep it out of the 7-pack display? It seems to me that sites who are not listed in the 7-pack can often be ranked above the maps/7-pack area in the regular organic listings. Also, is there anyway for a homepage to be listed on the 1st page in both the local search and organic listings? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hhdentist0 -
Domain authority vs. moz difficulty
what type relationship do you see with domain authority and moz difficulty scores? i'm finding a rule of "tens' usually applies.... meaning if da = 45, then difficulty scores of 40-50 are generally within short term reach (3-6 months of simple onpage optimization and an appropriate # ofinbound links to the page). your thoughts/data? just trying to get a feel for a consensus 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DonnieCooper0 -
List of Best SEO forums
Could I please get some input on a list of the best SEO forums out there besides SEOmoz? (Both mainstream and non mainstream)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Luia0 -
Entering into a new website franchise model, currently subdomains, client wants scalability. Best approach?
This is my first experience with a franchise model business. It is less than 1 year old and on page SEO is in pitiful shape with hundreds of subdomains already for specific locations. What is the best approach to take here? I've seen a lot of debate regarding subdomains and folders and it seems the folder structure may be the best long term course of action but I'm still a bit unclear on this. What is the best approach to ensure that all SEO addressed on the site has the most impact and moving forward, what is the best method to scaling the SEO for franchisee owners. What is the best practice to help each location be best positioned in search in the future, how much should the corporate franchise site typically provide in terms of SEO services to franchisees, and how does the lead SEO consultant scale those services to franchisees?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | methods0