Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Multiple domains vs single domain vs subdomains ?
-
I have a client that recently read an article that advised him to break up his website into various URL's that targeted specific products. It was supposed to be a solution to gain footing in an already competitive industry. So rather than company.com with various pages targeting his products, he'd end up having multiple smaller sites:
Etc.
The article stated that by structuring your website this way, you were more likely to gain ranking in Google by targeting these niche markets.
I wanted to know if this article was based on any facts. Are there any benefits to creating a new website that targets a specific niche market versus as a section of pages on a main website?
I then began looking into structuring each of these product areas into subdomains, but the data out there is not definitive as to how subdomains are viewed by Google and other search engines - more specifically how subdomains benefit (or not!) the primary domain.
So, in general, when a business targets many products and services that cover a wide range - what is the best way to structure the delivery of this info: multiple domains, single domain with folders/categories, or subdomains? If single domain with folders/categories are not an option, how do subdomains stack up?
Thanks in advance for your help/suggestions!
-
I just posted this in another thread but believe that it applies here as well....
========================================
Let me just call this... "logical speculation"....
If you chop a domain's content in half and place it on two different websites, you have also just chopped all of the links, likes, mentions, etc in half.
If you do that you should expect every ranking everywhere to drop - because you now have less domain authority - you cut it in half.
========================================
-
Splitting a client's website into multiple domains could affect you in branding (unless you incorporate the brand name and the vertical you want to split into the domain).
Subdomains only make sense if you really want to target different audiences and there is little chance of cross-over (i.e. there would be a slim chance that customers would overlap if you sell cosmetics on one domain and DYI products on another). The danger of subdomains is that if content is not properly managed, you will run into all sorts of content issues.
I would rather focus on a single domain with a good product category structure, product pages and a good set of landing-/conversion pages to target the different verticals.
I also think that a single domain will afford you better long-term value (both from a SEO and SEM perspective).
-
As is often the case, I think it depends on your specific business and products. I have seen the niche site idea work extremely well, and not work at all. Something to really take into account when considering the multi-site option is: Do you have the resources to develop manage and market multiple sites?
I am an in-house SEO for a company that just launched a micro-brand. They could have opted to put these new products on their existing Web site, but the products and customers were going to be vastly different than the core customer persona of the main site, although they are all church ministry related.
Our main site is very large and I have advised that it would be better to separate out the three subsections of the site because, again, the customers of each leg of the business are completely different. We are in a highly competitive category too, so this makes it extremely hard to rank for important keywords because our messaging is trying to address three different businesses with one Website.
If you have the resources to handle multiple sites, and you're in a competitive space, I'd say go for the niche sites. But beware of Exact Match Domains. Google is crackin' down!
Hope this perspective helps a bit.
-
I used to have a lot of hotdog stand websites... then built a big site that quickly defeated all of them and most of their competitors.
Who is kicking all of the ass out there right now?. The hotdog stands? Or, the big sites like wikipedia, about, amazon, ebay, ??
If you are going to attack the US Navy which would you rather have? One battleship or ten potato guns?
I used to run subdomains and then redirected them into folders on the main site and the results have been kickass. Kickass.
There is always a question about how google is going to treat subdomains but there is never a question about how they are going to treat a big website.
As far as conversions go and impressing your visitors. Which is going to do a better job.. A hotdog stand or a supermarket? Which will produce better shopping cart totals though cross selling?
Your questions have been asked in this Q&A over and over again. If you use search you will find lots of opinions that support the above?
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 Removing Zombie pages effect on domain authority?
Hi. Recently I got a project (removing zombie pages here: https://www.alamto.com/ ) As you can see this site has about 20k indexed page on google and it seems I should remove about 6000 useless indexed page. does removing (Noindex) these pages affect on the site metrics? Which metrics would affected? and how? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | jafarfahi1 -
Canonicalising a product with multiple variants
I am working with an ecommerce site and have encountered an issue I haven't come across before and would appreciate some advice on how to proceed. There are multiple variation products with one master product and then up to 20 or 30 variant products, the variation could be colour, size or both. The site has been set up to canonicalise all the variations to the master variant product, which I understand to be best practice. But, this is where the issue occurs, the master variant product URL 302 redirects to one of the variant product URLs. Example below. My question is, is this harmful to our SEO efforts? Would be be best to canonicalise to a preferred colour or size variation? EXAMPLE: Master variant product: www.example.co.uk/primary-category/product-123 Seeing this product on the page and clicking will 302 redirect to www.example/co.uk/primiary-category/product-123/colour-456 On page www.example/co.uk/primiary-category/product-123/colour-456 the canonical tag is www.example.co.uk/primary-category/product-123 Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | SimonKenworthy0 -
Naked domain redirection info
Hi Guys Been reading one or two posts about 'naked domains' v the 'www' derivative and was wondering... What is your opinion on this, is there a definitive benefit to your business in making the switch in terms of ranking? Apart from the Google released info, do you have any further recommended reading on this subject matter? Thanks in advance Daren
On-Page Optimization | | ITsoldSEO0 -
Link flow for multiple links to same URL
Hi there,
On-Page Optimization | | doctecs
my question is as follows: How does Google handle link flow if two links in a given page point to the same URL? (do they flow link individually or not?) This seems to be a newbie question, but actually it seems that there is little evidence and even also little consensus in the SEO community about this detail. Answers should include source Information about the current state of art at Google is preferable The question is not about anchor text, general best practises for linking, "PageRank is dead" etc. We do know that the "historical" PageRank was implemented (a long time ago) without special handling for multiple links, as e.g. last stated by Matt Cutts in this video: http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718 On the other hand, many people from the SEO community say that only the first link counts. But so far I could not find any data to back this up, which is quite surprising.0 -
Does 'XXX' in Domain get filtered by Google
I have a friend that has xxx in there domain and they are a religious based sex/porn addiction company but they don't show up for the queries that they are optimized against. They have a 12+ year old domain, all good health signs in quality links and press from trusted companies. Google sends them adult traffic, mostly 'trolls' and not the users they are looking for. Has anyone experienced domain word filtering and have a work around or solution? I posted in the Google Webmaster help forums and that community seems a little 'high on their horses' and are trying to hard to be cool. I am not too religious and don't necessarily support the views of the website but just trying to help a friend of a friend with a topic that I have never encountered. here is the url: xxxchurch.com Thanks, Brian
On-Page Optimization | | Add3.com0 -
Which is Best Practice for creating URLs for subdomain?
My website is related to education. We have created sub domains for all major colleges, universities & Entrance exams like Gre, Toefl ETC. for eg: amityuniversity.abc.com (Amity is Name of University ) Now if have to mention city name in URL as well (college is located in multiple locations) amityuniversity-delhi.abc.com
On-Page Optimization | | rohanarora536
amityuniversitydelhi.abc.com Now my Q is can we use hyphens in sub domains if we have to add city name or shall we create without using any hyphens. In Directory structure we can always separate words with hyphens, can we follow same practice in subdomain as well Which is a best URL for subdomain amity-university-delhi.abc.com
amityuniversity-delhi.abc.com
or amityuniversitydelhi.abc.com0 -
.us VS .com
In general from what I have experienced a location specific extension such as .co.uk geo-targeted to the same location gives the best results when ranking BUT when I look at results from the US, page after page shows results of .com, surely if my above statement is true then a .us domain extension should rank better then a .com.
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
How do we handle sitemaps in robots.txt when multiple domains point to same physical location?
we have www.mysite.net, www.mysite.se, www.mysite.fi and so on. all of these domains point to the same physical location on our webserver, and we replace texts given back to client depending on which domain he/she requested. My problem is this: How do i configure sitemaps in robots.txt when robots.txt is used by multiple domains? If I for instance put the rows Sitemap: http://www.mysite.net/sitemapNet.xml
On-Page Optimization | | nordicnetproducts
Sitemap: http://www.mysite.net/sitemapSe.xml in robots.txt, would that result in some cross submission error?0