Subdomain or Start over?
-
I have a site that is currently set up geo-targeted in sub-domains. So each geo is princeton.site.com. Each site has the same code, design, but the events listed are different. There are about 30 subdomains and they are looking to expand nationally.
After the Panda update, I am seeing that it looks like they should stay as sub-domains rather than redirecting everything or setting up new domains.
Any thoughts on if the sub domains should stay and expand exponentially? SEO strategy, etc.? I'm also worried about the possibility of duplicate content.
Thanks!
-
Hi there,
Why are you looking to migrate the subdomains to subdirectories? In general, the most "natural" URL structure for a city organization would be: yourdomain.com/city/category/ since you will be able to consolidate all the popularity that you can attract to the different cities to your main domain structure and on the other hand, optimize (as you should be already doing with your subdomains) every landing page targeting each city.
Nonetheless, if you're already ranking with these subdomains for your keywords related to these cities the effort and substancial benefit that you might look to get might not compensate the effort -only if you see that you're not ranking with this structure and look to consolidate popularity-.
What is definitely fundamental that you do whether you decide to keep the subdomains or migrate to the subdirectories is that each city page (and its subpages) should feature unique, relevant content optimize for them. This shouldn't be necessarily difficult to achieve if you organize and optimize your structure to show:
- The name of each city in the titles, meta descriptions, headings.
- Add your specific office address in each city.
- Add your telephone number in each city.
- Enable and promote user generated content, like reviews, comments, ratings targeting each city.
- Create different offers or promotions for each city.
Like this, despite the fact that these city landing pages might feature similar offering (which is normal since they're the same business at the end) the content will be unique for each one of them.
I hope this helps. If you still have any doubts, please let me know.
Aleyda
-
If you are trying to do something like that where the audience is only for local business, then you can do it just like city search and craigslist.org.
"IF" you target market is similar, then you have a choice between subdomain and folders. Do what is best for your audience.
-
I really haven't seen much of it either, but citysearch.com is a good example.
-
When Google talks about GeoTargeting they mean countries, not cities. You cannot get target cities in GWT, only countries.
I have NEVER seen a company that had a website with subdomains for every city.
-
The content all appears to be unique - I am not seeing any dup content flags, but they are similar. Each subdomain has anywhere from 50 to 200+ pages. It does not look like much has been done for link building - just some regular social media posting on facebook, etc. I have attached the OSE overview for the subdomains.
Unfortunately, I do not have access to their webmaster tools yet. But they are pretty well indexed.
Thanks Scott!
-
The site was brought to me in this state. I've been reading that Google suggests subdomains for this type of site, even more so now after Panda: http://www.whitefireseo.com/site-architecture/subdomain-or-subfolder-post-panda/360/
-
There is not enough information to answer this question. if this is geo targeted to cities, then why not just do example.com/city-1, example.com/city-2, etc.
-
Before answering, I have a few questions...
How many pages of unique content exist already on each of these subdomains?
How many backlinks do you already have built to each of these subdomains?
Have you verified each subdomain in Google Webmaster Tools? How many pages are indexed for each?
Scott O.
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
-
Gradual roll out of new webpages on temporary subdomain
I’m working for a company who is looking to gradually replace an existing website with a new website. They will replace the homepage, then a section, then another section, and so on, until the new site is complete. All new pages will sit on a temporary subdomain. So, for example, the URL for the homepage at the moment is www.domain.com, but as soon as the new homepage is ready, that will be launched on a temporary URL / subdomain - www2.domain.com - replacing the old homepage. The new pages will then gradually increase on www2.domain.com (so journeys will inevitably move across domains) until the whole of the new website is ready on www2.domain.com - at which point it will move on to www.domain.com. I know this isn’t a good way of doing things - I would much prefer the new site is completely built and then it just replaces the old site with the necessary 301 redirects in place - but the company wants to see the gradual roll out of new page designs. So, my question is, what’s the best way to manage this without negatively impacting rankings for the existing domain (www.domain.com)?
Web Design | | RWesley1 -
Should I move my blog from subdomain to subdirectory?
Hi there, We have a pretty strong organic presence on our consumer facing blog. Around 5.7 million organic clicks Year to Date. It's currently housed in Wordpress on a subdomain. Our team is considering migrating our blog from Wordpress to Sitecore, where our parent organization resides. With that consideration, we're trying to determine if we should preserve the subdomain or move to a subdirectory of the parent brand. Moving to the parent brand would also result in a loss of our custom global nav - we would inherit the global nav of the parent website. We're not concerned about traffic loss risk - we know that we'll lose some but we think the move to subdirectory might be more beneficial in the long run from an SEO perspective. We're mostly concerned about the users getting lost without the global nav specific to the blog. Thoughts/concerns? Thank you!
Web Design | | Jessdyl0 -
Why is Google Webmaster suddenly started showing hundreds of HTML Improvements
Why is Google Webmaster suddenly started showing hundreds of HTML Improvements I mean to ask, my hundreds pages are been shown as duplicate - despite canonical marked correctly Below are sample url - which are been crawled in own way. I have rechecked canonical tag - which is correct as URL - 1, in all 3 url Do i need to worry about anything or shall i presume its a flaw from search engine to report this as an issue (This only pertain to Forum section) http://www.mycarhelpline.com/index.php?option=com_easydiscuss&view=post&id=1683&Itemid=78 http://www.mycarhelpline.com/?id=1683&Itemid=78&option=com_easydiscuss&view=post http://www.mycarhelpline.com/index.php?option=com_easydiscuss&view=post&id=1683 ps - i know these are dynamic url and not sef friendly url, but its been 3 yrs and , due to our ignorance and site builder took advantage of this. now - nothing can be done much to make them sef friendly as site has several thousand pages and touchwood - these dynamic url are not impacting much
Web Design | | Modi0 -
HTTPS redirecting to subdomain; do I need to 301 to HTTP first?
Hello there, quick question on HTTPS downgrade to HTTP. Originally, full site was HTTPS. Redesign eliminated need for secure layer. Site currently has https 301'd to sub.domain.com. Ideally, site would live at domain.com, but with the old site having been indexed https, the security warning triggers when you visit, hence the 301 to a subdomain. Thinking possible solutions here are to a) add back in secure layer or b) 301 all old https pages to new http pages. Have I overlooked something? With (a), I will see no SEO impact, correct? With (b), can I expect impact similar to a relaunch? Have seen a lot of chatter that there is some impact in switching http to https, but not much the other way. Any help much appreciated!
Web Design | | alimo0 -
Subdomains For Real Estate Website
I am currently working on a proposal for a clients Wordpress website development which includes ongoing SEO after the website is developed. I have looked into a number of options and the one that seems the most cost effective involves using subdomains for the individual listings pages. What I want: clientsdomain.com/listings/idxnumber/ What I can get for a decent price: listings.clientsdomain.com/idxnumber/ So the majority of the website will actually exist on a subdomain because the IDX API will automatically populate pages for all of the MLS listings in the area (hundreds or thousands). Meanwhile the domain itself will have all the neighborhood pages and other optimized content, blogs and whatnot. My concern is that dividing the website like this will have negative effects on SEO. There wont be duplicate content across subdomain and main domain, but they will share a lot of links back and forth. I haven't found any recent sources on the topic. Almost everything I have found says that dividing a website in this manor is bad for SEO, but these articles are often many years old. Does anyone know of a Wordpress plugin/IDX company that can provide a solution that doesn't use a subdomain and actually just lists each MLS page within a directory? I am open to using another platform, I am just most familiar with Wordpress. Will using a subdomain in the ways mentioned above have a profound negative effect on SEO? Thank you for your time in responding, I greatly appreciate it.
Web Design | | TotalMarketExposure0 -
Title tag on Google starts with company name then :
Can someone help me and tell me why Google picks up and shows the title tag as for example: SEOmoz**: SEO Software. Simplified.** Then if you click through and look at the cache version of the page it shows the title tags as just SEO Software. Simplified. So without the SEOmoz: at the start. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.seomoz.org%2F&aq=f&oq=cache%3Awww.seomoz.org%2F&aqs=chrome.0.57j58.3052&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Its probably something really easy and I'm going to kick myself when someone tells me but I can't figure out why?
Web Design | | i3MEDIA1 -
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 -
Are Subdomains Beneficial?
Are subdomains beneficial? I have a client with 4 stores. As it stands, they use one domain, www.mainpage.com/store1, www.mainpage.com/store2, etc. Are there any big benefits to making these subdomains like store1.mainpage.com, store2.mainpage.com?
Web Design | | eldoradoseo0