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.
Complimentary sub-brand; subdomain, subfolder, something else?
-
Hello forum!
I have a question about subdomains vs. subfolders for a new sub-brand for a company.
The company is looking at creating a sub-brand delivering a different service to the parent company. It is complimentary in a sense, but it would need a very different marketing strategy. It is not trying to 'hide' its parent brand at all, but instead would leverage the parent brand as added social proof.
I've read that creating a subdomain essentially means starting from scratch in terms of SEO, and that a subfolder would better leverage the domain authority the TLD has accrued. However, creating a subfolder does not really gel with me, as it would not in my opinion provide a good experience for visitors.
I.e. it's like running a website that sells electronics and having a subfolder marketing IT support services.
Yes, there is some synergy-- but it can also lead to visitor confusion.
I'd love your opinions on this!
Carlo
-
Hey Carlo
I would go for a separate domain but try buying an aged domain that's clean with some existing back links. Failing that a new domain with keywords in the domain. Yea it still works!
Hope that helps
steve
-
Hi Vadim,
Thanks for sharing that video! Seems to conflict with what I've been reading. But I suppose it is coming straight from the horse's mouth.
P.S. Would love your feedback based on my response to Steve!
Cheers,
Carlo -
Hi Steve,
Thanks for commenting. The company provides Managed IT Support to businesses, and is looking to move into digital marketing and web design. So my original thoughts were:
- brand new domain
- subdomain
- subfolder and UI integration <-- (but this thought made me nauseous)
What do you think?
Regards,
Carlo -
Hi Carlo Del Fabbro,
You mentioned that you prefer not to use sub-directories but prefer sub-domains. To my understanding and according to Matt Cutts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk subdomains and subfolders work the same way. There are some downsides with subdomains, but I do not believe they are with SEO, so it should not steer you away from using a subdomain. I am not sure why Rubix mentioned that in the post maybe ask him to clarify or get others to chime in
Hope this Helps!
-
Would it be more confusing to have:
http://itsupportservice.myelectronics.com rather than http://myelectronic.com/itsupportservice/
At least you get the leverage all the SEO work on the main domain!
It may depend on the brand and sub-brand though. What's the main main brand and sub-brand?
For what it's worth, my opinion is that you should go for a /folder/ off the main domain...
Regards
Steve
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
-
URL Structure & Best Practice when Facing 4+ Sub-levels
Hi. I've spent the last day fiddling with the setup of a new URL structure for a site, and I can't "pull the trigger" on it. Example: - domain.com/games/type-of-game/provider-name/name-of-game/ Specific example: - arcade.com/games/pinball/deckerballs/starshooter2k/ The example is a good description of the content that I have to organize. The aim is to a) define url structure, b) facilitate good ux, **c) **create a good starting point for content marketing and SEO, avoiding multiple / stuffing keywords in urls'. The problem? Not all providers have the same type of game. Meaning, that once I get past the /type-of-game/, I must write a new category / page / content for /provider-name/. No matter how I switch the different "sub-levels" around in the url, at one point, the provider-name doesn't fit as its in need of new content, multiple times. The solution? I can skip "provider-name". The caveat though is that I lose out on ranking for provider keywords as I don't have a cornerstone content page for them. Question: Using the URL structure as outlined above in WordPress, would you A) go with "Pages", or B) use "Posts"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Dan-Louis0 -
What are best page titles for sub-domain pages?
Hi Moz communtity, Let's say a website has multiple sub-domains with hundreds and thousands of pages. Generally we will be mentioning "primary keyword & "brand name" on every page of website. Can we do same on all pages of sub-domains to increase the authority of website for this primary keyword in Google? Or it gonna end up as negative impact if Google consider as duplicate content being mentioned same keyword and brand name on every page even on website and all pages of sub domains? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Subdomains vs directories on existing website with good search traffic
Hello everyone, I operate a website called Icy Veins (www.icy-veins.com), which gives gaming advice for World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, two titles from Blizzard Entertainment. Up until recently, we had articles for both games on the main subdomain (www.icy-veins.com), without a directory structure. The articles for World of Warcraft ended in -wow and those for Hearthstone ended in -hearthstone and that was it. We are planning to cover more games from Blizzard entertainment soon, so we hired a SEO consultant to figure out whether we should use directories (www.icy-veins.com/wow/, www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone/, etc.) or subdomains (www.icy-veins.com, wow.icy-veins.com, hearthstone.icy-veins.com). For a number of reason, the consultant was adamant that subdomains was the way to go. So, I implemented subdomains and I have 301-redirects from all the old URLs to the new ones, and after 2 weeks, the amount of search traffic we get has been slowly decreasing, as the new URLs were getting index. Now, we are getting about 20%-25% less search traffic. For example, the week before the subdomains went live we received 900,000 visits from search engines (11-17 May). This week, we only received 700,000 visits. All our new URLs are indexed, but they rank slightly lower than the old URLs used to, so I was wondering if this was something that was to be expected and that will improve in time or if I should just go for subdomains. Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | damienthivolle0 -
Microsites: Subdomain vs own domains
I am working on a travel site about a specific region, which includes information about lots of different topics, such as weddings, surfing etc. I was wondering whether its a good idea to register domains for each topic since it would enable me to build backlinks. I would basically keep the design more or less the same and implement a nofollow navigation bar to each microsite. e.g.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kinimod
weddingsbarcelona.com
surfingbarcelona.com or should I rather go with one domain and subfolders: barcelona.com/weddings
barcelona.com/surfing I guess the second option is how I would usually do it but I just wanted to see what are the pros/cons of both options. Many thanks!0 -
Best Practices for Moving a Sub-Domain to a Sub-Folder
One of my clients is moving their subdomain to a subfolder on their main domain. (ie. blog.example.com to example.com/blog) I just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on some best practices for things we should be doing/looking for when making this move.? ie WMT, .htaccess, 301s etc? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DarinPirkey0 -
Follow or nofollow to subdomain
Hi, I run a hotel booking site and the booking engine is setup on a subdomain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vmotuz
The subdomain is disabled from being indexed in robots.txt Should the links from the main domain have a nofollow to the subdomain? What are you thoughts? Thanks!0 -
Disavow Subdomain?
Hi all, I've been checking and it seems like there are only 2 options when disavowing links with Google's tool. Disavow the link: http://spam.example.com/stuff/content.htm Disavow the domain: domain: example.com What can I do if I want do disavow a subdomain? i.e. spam.site.com I'm also assuming that if I were to disavow the domain it would include all subdomains? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carlos-R0 -
Should we stream videos from a subdomain or subfolder?
This is causing some hand-wrangling and I need some help. Let's say we were developing rich video content for our products and our agency is hosting the content on a new external server. There are already plans to link to these videos from product detail pages, category pages, and landing pages on our main website: www.example.com. Would it be better to create a new subdomain or to use a subfolder with a reverse proxy technique for this video content? It's not truly a microsite and will not have a gallery page to navigate the various videos. For example, would it be better to use this: video.example.com/ ...or this (executed with a reverse proxy😞 www.example.com/video/ Of course, regardless of whether this new content will live on a subdomain or within a subfolder, we plan on creating a video Sitemap using guidance from Justin Hammack in this terrific post.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ryan-Ricketts1