Subdomain vs subdirectory for store
-
Hello,
The following services site
has a store at
Would the store be stronger if it was at
(in a subfolder) and included in the main navigation? The moz bar suggests not but I just want to make sure.
Thanks.
-
Yes, this is a great video by Matt Cutts. But I think he's mostly addressing how Google perceived people were trying to abuse their system, and what changes they made as a result.
Basically, he's saying that a subdomain doesn't make a big difference to Google's search rankings, and that in the past, people would use subdomains so that they could get additional search ranking placements (one for the main domain, another for a subdomain). He's made it clear that Google has put an end to this practice.
What he doesn't discuss is whether putting content on a subdomain is going to affect how Google scores the site, and if it scores a subdomain separately.
Most of the research out there still shows that the domain ranking is set differently for a subdomain vs. a subdirectory. Perhaps this might change in the future, but the general school of thought is that if you put all of your inbound links, social media shares, and content development into one domain (www.domain.com), it will do better than splitting the effort (part goes to shop.domain.com and part goes to www.domain.com).
Thanks!!
-
Jeff, have you seen this:
is he just trying to keep it simple and subdirectories are actually better?
-
Bob-
I've answered a similar question in the past here: http://moz.com/community/q/blog-on-subdomain
But the gist of it is:
store.mydomain.com --> content on the store. is treated as a different site, and SEO efforts (content, inbound links, social media) only help the subdomain.
mydomain.com/store --> subdirectories are usually the way to go. All of the content, inbound links and social media shares will help build the overall domain authority for you.
My recommendation is to go with the sub directory (mydomain.com/store/, and there are a whole lot of articles that back this up:
http://moz.com/community/q/blog-on-subdomain-vs-subdirectory-best-practices
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/
http://moz.com/community/q/best-place-for-a-blog-blog-mydomain-com-or-mydomain-com-blog
Hope this helps...
-- Jeff
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
-
Rel=canonical vs noindex/follow - tabs with individual URLs
Hi everyone I've got a situation that I haven't seen in quite this way before. I would like some advice on whether I should be rel=canonicalzing of noindexing/following a range of pages on a clients website. I've just started working on a website that creates individual URLs for tabs within each page which has resulted in several URLs being created for each listing: Example URLs: hotel-downtown-calgary hotel-downtown-calgary/gallery?tab hotel-downtown-calgary?tab hotel-downtown-calgary/map?tab hotel-downtown-calgary/facilities?tab hotel-downtown-calgary/reviews?tab hotel-downtown-calgary/in-the-area?tab Google has indexed over 1500 pages with the "?tab" parameter (there are 4380 page indexed for the site in total), and also seems to be indexing some of these pages without the "?tab" parameter i.e. ("hotel-downtown-calgary/reviews" instead of "hotel-downtown-calgary/reviews?tab") so the amount of potential duplication could be more. These tabbed pages are getting minimal traffic from organic search, so I've got no issues with taking them out of the index - the question is how. There are the issues I see: Each tab has the same title as the other tabs for each location, so lots of title duplication. Each individual tab doesn't have much content (although the content each tab has is unique). I would usually expect the tabs to be distinguished by the parameters only, not have unique URLs - if that was the case we wouldn't have a duplication issue. So the question is: rel=canonical or noindex/follow? I can see benefits of both. Looking forward to your thoughts!
On-Page Optimization | | Digitator0 -
Duplicate anchor text vs poor relevance in internal links
We're writing a number of blog posts, all based around a particular head-term (call it "women's widgets"). Each post will be centered around a different long-tail keyword (e.g. "women's brandA widgets", "women's brandB widgets", "women's type1 widgets", etc.). We want to link from the blog posts back to the main "women's widgets" category-level page on our site. Should we: a) Use the words "women's widgets" in each blog post and link that to the "women's widgets" page? This would be the most relevant, but it also seems like using the same anchor text on all of the posts, and linking to the main page, is not good since Google doesn't like seeing the same exact anchor text all the time, right? b) Link the long-tail keyword ("women's brandA widgets") to the main "women's widgets" page? That would solve the anchor text duplication issue, but then the anchor text doesn't seem relevant to the page being linked to (it might never mention "brandA" on that main page at all), and I think it would also hurt the blog post's chances of ranking for the long-tail keyword since we're basically saying that there's a more relevant page for that keyword somewhere else (i.e. you shouldn't link out from a page using the phrase you're trying to optimize that page for). c) Link a nearby word/phrase instead? For example, we could say "Trust Companyname.com for your women's widget needs", and link "Companyname.com" to the "women's widget" page. By proximity to the keyword phrase, that may help a bit, but again the relevancy of the anchor text to the page being linked to is fairly low. I'd hate to have a bunch of "click here", "read this" or "company name" anchor texts being used, just in the name of not overusing the head-term in the anchor text. Are we just missing something, or misunderstanding Google's preferences? What do you do when you don't want to overuse a keyword in anchor text, but you still want to link to a main category-level page using the head-term in order to tell Google that that is the most relevant, best page for that keyword? Is anchor text duplication more of a problem for external backlinks, and less of an issue for internal interlinking? Do you have a different suggestion, other than what I outlined above? Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | BandLeader
John0 -
Short URL's vs Optimised URL's
Howdy Mozzers! What are your thoughts on short URL's vs Optimised URL's. For example if a website currently sells wood furniture and wants to target the keyword "Wood Furniture For Sale", which URL would be preferable: Short URL: www.domain.com/wood-furniture Optimised URL: www.domain.com/wood-furniture-for-sale The website also uses facet navigation and selected attributes are added in a fixed order sequence after the category. For example if Cane is selected as wood type: Short URL: www.domain.com/wood-furniture/Cane Optimised URL: www.domain.com/wood-furniture-for-sale/Cane Which one do you prefer (between the short URL and optimised URL) and why? Cheers! MozAddict
On-Page Optimization | | MozAddict0 -
Pages vs Posts
What are your thoughts on pages vs posts? I am setting up a new blog for a client but not sure how to structure the content. I may just do posts or a whole bunch of page listed down the sidebar. It seems like my pages always rank better than my posts. Has anyone else noticed this? Could it be because of the dates tied posts?
On-Page Optimization | | SixTwoInteractive0 -
The importance of the home page and subdirectories
I am getting myself quite confused. My home page and target for one of my main sets of keywords is actually located at: www.domain.net.au/keywords/default.aspx BUT I have loads of external links resolving to: www.domain.net.au/ I had assumed that the best practice for getting the best ranking for the keyword would be to Canoniclise the page to:www.domain.net.au/keywords/ Is that a good assumption ? Or will it only work if I can change all the inbound, external links as well ? Thanks -Mark
On-Page Optimization | | blinkybill0 -
Keyword vs Brand Domain Name
Hi guys, I'm about to launch a new site for a friend who is an accountant in a specialist field. He's already bought 2 domains: **www.[keyword]-accountants.net ** **www.[brand]accountants.com ** We have made the decision to use the brand domain to host the site but what can we do with the keyword domain as exact match domains still seem to be ranking well in the serps? e.g. build keyword links to the keyword domain (heavily seo'd content) and build brand links to the brand domain (conversion-optimised content) then after while 301 the keyword domain? Any new suggestions will be gratefully received!
On-Page Optimization | | Tman30 -
What are the benefits of targeting one keyword phrase per page vs. multiple keywords per page
What are the benefits of optimizing a page for one keyword phrase versus a group of similar keywords, like this one that Rand posted on another blog entry http://bit.ly/7LzTxY: Ted Baker Ted Baker London Ted Baker Clothing Ted Baker Mens Ted Baker Mens Clothing Ted Baker Mens Collection
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340 -
Google VS Yahoo VS Bing & Onpage Optimization in 2011
I was just wondering if someone could point out to me any known differences between these three search engines. I feel like i have been spending a lot of time optimizing for google, but don't have much of an idea of how to optimize for yahoo or bing. Do you have any up-to date article links or tips/advice?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0