Sub directory vs sub domain for company blog
-
My company's blog is currently a sub directory - www.site/blog.com but for technical ease we are considering changing it to a sub domain - www.blog.site.com.
What are the SEO ramifications of each?
Thank you!
Best,
Sara
-
Before writing the question on SEO Moz I leaning towards a subdomain for the exact same reasons you listed here. However, based on the input below it seems as if links and PR can be passed from both a subdomain and subdirectory.
Do you disagree?
-
i am not saying the change included search, but only that it leads me to think that this is how google already handles things in search. i find it hard to believe that they wiould give subdomain site stats to the owner of the root domain, but considered them seperate in search. You could argue ownership and ranking relevance are not the same thing, but it does remove the border of ownership.
I have never seen anything that shows that subdomains and subdirectories are handeld different, in fact MattCutts has stated they are the same, this and the sitelinks showing links in subdomains just goes to confirm it IMO.
-
Actually, Google has explicitly commented on this. See this post at http://www.seroundtable.com/google-subdomains-webmaster-tools-13968.html where they say:
Dear webmasters: A lot of people have seen the recent announcement about the recent reorganization of backlinks in Webmaster Tools and are saying it's a reflection of a new way that Google handles links for ranking purposes.
Wrong.
This change is only for how Webmaster Tools displays link data to help webmasters understand their links a bit better. The most common use case is for links to both www and non-www versions of the same site, even if these two different hostnames are canonicalized correctly. Previously, Webmaster Tools considered the links to each separately even though webmasters (and everyone else) considered them to be the same site. That situation was not ideal and so this change helps simplify things quite a bit.
-
Yes I agree they did not say that, but to allow someone stats of a web site simply because it is a subdomain of the root you conrol, leads me to thing that they also think this way in search, this with the site links showing sub domain data and what Matt Cutts has said I have no reson to think that there is any difference between subdomains and subdirectories.
Rather than suggesting it indicates a change, i think it goes to comfirm how they already think. I doubt if the webmaster people have the ability to comment of search or even know, so i would not expecet them to confirm anything, although i asked.
-
Google has also said that the GWT change does not reflect in any way how they value subdomain vs subfolders; that this change doesn't indicate that they have changed their way of thinking, just their way of presenting.
-
I know that many have said that over time, but i dont think it is true, recently GWMT has started to show links comming from subdomains as internal. As long as no one else has verified the sub domain it is assumed to be owned by the root domain owner.
Also site links in google contain sub domain links. so i believe that SE's see them as the same site.Also Matt Cutts has said there is no difference, only to say that you should have enouth content to warrent it
-
The extra effort required to create a blog under the domain rather than the subdomain is worth it. subdomains are created by the web team when they are looking for the easiest solution and not taking SEO into account.
Creating a blog on the main domains is widely agreed in the SEO community as being the best option. You are creating additional content and interlinking on your site plus if the blog is link worthy you are getting good PR passed to your main site instead of off to a subdomain.
-
In general I agree i like subdomains, as a developer the seperation is nice and tidy.
but virtual directories is a gret solutiosn when platforms must be mixed, I develop in ASP.MVC and sometimes have to load a web forms application intro a directory. -
It's certainly possible in some cases to do that depending on the web server and underlying application, however with others it is not, or it is difficult.
Ultimately it is up to each individual person to evaluate their technology vs what they want, in our company we have decided that there is little to no cost to our business to put the blogs on their own subdomain and alleviate all technical considerations.
-
IOf you man because they are different platforms, It is posibble, at least on windows servers, you can make a virtual directory, it willact as anouther site in a sub directory.
-
For all the sites we run that have a blog we generally use a subdomain for one reason: It is much easier to mix and match technologies or move the blog to different providers with a subdomain.
For example, one of the sites we run uses a custom-built Ruby-on-Rails application for the main website (www.site.com) and we use Tumblr with a custom hostname (blog.site.com) to host our blog. Such a setup would be impossible using a sub-directory, and if we decided we wanted to switch the blog to a custom WordPress installation it would be possible (not taking into account possible 301 issues)
-
No I dont believe there is, only the usual 301 issues, if you have any links pointing to the old location you will need to 301 redirect to new location this will also prevent duplicate content issues.
but I agree i like subdomains, as a developer the seperation is noce and tidy
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 do I get more traffic for my blog?
Hi there, I would like to know how to work on my blog to get more organic traffic. Thanks!!
Content Development | | lucywrites1 -
Should my client copy and paste his blog posts onto other professional sites?
I have a client who is an Attorney and participates in a couple of different Q and A legal sites. One of these legal sites is recommending to my client that he copy and paste his blog posts onto his profile page on the Q and A site. I understand my client wanting to copy and paste his blog posts onto these sites, as it will not only get his content in front of a larger audience, but also lend credibility. However, I've always heard that that could cause some duplicate content problems. Will my client's blog likely get penalized by google for copying and pasting his blog posts onto other relevant sites?
Content Development | | ScottMcPherson0 -
BLOG, Sub-Domain or NEW Domain???
Hi, I have one online store using 2 differents domain: http://www.filtrationmontreal.com ( french language) http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com ( english language) A language switch at the top right of the store, give you access to a different language when shopping. I had to do this because, my shopping cart does not offert the possibilty to have a multyi-language store! Now I want to create a blog. What is my best option: 2 blogs with sub-domain. ex: http://www.BLOG.furnacefilterscanada.com and http://www.BLOG.filtrationmontreal.com one multil-language blog with a new domain linking to my online stores I would appreciate your advice on this. My goal is to increase traffic, rank better and increase sales by providing solid content on a blog. I will use Word-Press self host. I will buy a premium theme. I purchase themes from theme forest before. Do you have a favorite theme to suggest? Thank you for your help a support. BigBlaze
Content Development | | BigBlaze2050 -
Which is better for seo purposes? site/blog or site/community?
Hi Guys I was wondering if you could help on this one. We are in the process of setting up a wordpress blog for our website to aid our content marketing efforts, and was wondering what main url for this blog is going to be the best for seo purposes? So of the following 2 which one is going to be the better one? site.com/blog or site.com/community If anyone could get back to me on this I would appreciate it. Thanks David
Content Development | | DavidZA10 -
Help on blog topics for my niche
I'm looking for a couple of blogging ideas to get the ball rolling (mainly in my head) for one of the company websites I am working on. The site is https://perco.co.uk The company is based around offering trenchless technology across the UK. The first couple of posts are more like 'Latest news' items and I have only really come up with an idea of 'microtunnelling vs directional drilling'. I didn't seem to get much out of ubersuggest, soovle and google instant. Has anyone got any ideas? Thanks
Content Development | | Hughescov
Shaun0 -
Duplicate Page Content WordPress blog with categories?
Just got a crawl report back from SEOmoz and it gives me lots of errors for "duplicate page content". Upon investigating, I notice this is because my WP blog is setup into categories so the home page is almost identical to one of the category pages. None of my actually posts are the same but the category pages have some overlap since the same post could show up in two or more categories. Is this a problem or can I just ignore this error? Any thing I should be doing differently? Thanks!
Content Development | | frankthetank20 -
Should I Have No Index, No Follow On Blog Category & Tag Pages?
At some point in the past I read or was told that No Index, No Follow tags on category and tag pages were a good thing on a standard WordPress blog in order to prevent duplicate content issues. Is this still true or was it ever true?
Content Development | | eTundra0 -
Index.html vs. default.html
Hi, I have a website that is about 7 years old. I had been using index.html as the home page. When I redesigned my site about 3 months ago I changed it to default.html. The old index.html page was still on my server. I just realized my mistake. All of my links to the home page lead to the new default.html. However, people are still landing on the old index.html. I have change the old index.html to the new design but that means i have 2 "home" pages out there. Should i delete one? Should I leave them both there but use the canonical tag for one so it is not considered duplicate content? What is best for my rankings?
Content Development | | bhsiao0