Should I use subdomains?
-
I'm thinking of a little project website, but wonder whether I should use subdomains, or just simply categorize the site.
For example, (I haven't chosen my domain yet) If I had www.flowers.com, and wanted to produce pages for each type of flower, should i use
rose.flower.com
or
flower.com/roseFor SEO purposes, or usability, does it matter?
Thanks in advance.
-
No problem Gordon. This is just me providing an example which can be modelled next to any project, however big or small.
-
Thanks Gary. That's quite an extensive sitemap!
I'm not sure how much I had thought a sitemap through, but I certainly had a vague structure in mind, but you know how these "little projects" - they grow and grow into monsters!
-
Hi Gordon
Simon is certainly right.
Something else to consider...
If you considering building a site, I would certainly "first" get to work on designing a "site map" to help you clarify your site's purpose and goals. This is essential for both SEO and usability.
We did some content marketing recently for Red Funnel IoW Ferries and Red Funnel Holidays. You'll see we've split all of their content into a well organised site map. http://www.redfunnel.co.uk/information/sitemap/
You may already know this Gordon, but I wanted to point this out because so many new businesses build a site which does not cover their "customer needs". A site map will give you a clear picture to expand your content for your targeted audience, as well as the SEO benefits.
-
I have been watching how google treats subdomains for a long time.
My conclusion is that Google can not make up their mind how to treat them. Sometimes their power is united with the site. Sometimes they are isolated. When they are isolated all of the assets that you have placed on them have little value towards the success of your website.
So, if you want your web assets to consistently receive favorable treatment and pull in concert for your domain then they should all be placed in folders on the primary domain.
It is easy to be fooled by observing "how subdomains are being treated today" because google will likely change their mind tomorrow.
-
Thanks Simon. That was generally my opinion, mostly based on the fact that the majority of websites do it the way you say, but I thought I'd ask the question before I embark on the project.
-
Hi Gordon
Sub-domains in my experience are not the best way to dissect your content or your site with topics as varied as you are suggesting. The best method might be internal directories.
For Example: www.flower.com/roses/red.html and not - roses.flower.com/red-roses.html
I tried using sub domains when I first started out, for my own business and duplicate content issues together with so much additional updating when major changes were required made it a hassle that was not rewarded in ranking benefits.
I recently spent a month eliminating my sub-domains from search and found much more time available to focus on my main site. My rankings in local search flew to the top within a couple of weeks and organic rankings also benefited.
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
-
What is the feeliing of "Here's where our site can help" text links used for conversions?
If you have an ecommerce site that is using editorial content on topics related to the site's business model to build organic traffic and draw visitors who might be interested in using the site's services eventually, what is the SEO (page ranking) impact -- as well as the impact on the visitors' perceptions about the reliability of the information on the site -- of using phrases like "Here is where [our site] can help you." in nearly every article. Note: the "our site" text would be linked in each case as a conversion point to one of the site's services pages to get visitors to move from content pages on a site to the sales pages on the site. Will this have an impact on page rankings? Does it dilute the page's relevance to search engines? Will the content look less authoritative because of the prevalence of these types of links? What about the same conversion links without the "we can help" text - i.e., more natural-sounding links that stem from the flow of the article but can lead interested visitors deeper into the ecommerce section of the site?
Algorithm Updates | | Will-McDermott0 -
What happens when a de-indexed subdomain is redirected to another de-indexed subdomain? What happens to the link juice?
Hi all, We are planning to de-index and redirect a sub domain A to sub domain B. Consequently we now need to d-index sub domain B also. What happens now to the link juice or page rank they gained from hundreds and thousands of backlinks? Will there be any ranking impact on main domain? Backlinks of these sub domains are not much relevant to main domain content. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Should I move my forum to a subdomain?
My forum causes a lot of 403, 404, soft 404 and 522 errors. I worry about this dragging down the value of my domain and wonder if I should move it to a sub directory. forum.domain.com. I was forced to do this with a very similar site and seems to have not suffered any google penalty (I implemented a 301 redirect to each page to its corresponding page on the subdomain.
Algorithm Updates | | 321Chat0 -
Using the canonical tag across multiple domains...
Hi guys I am looking for some help in regards to using canonical tags in other domains that have similar content to our main site. Would this be the right way to go about it? For example www.main.com is the website i would like to achieve best ranking with, but i also have other websites, www.secondary.com and www.somethingelse.com which have similar content and all link back to www.main.com So in order to make sure the google bot knows these other pages are a reference to the main.com page can i put a canonical tag in secondary.com that goes like this: rel="canonical" href="www.main.com" /> and put that same tag in somethingelse.com Would i achieve a better ranking for doing so on main.com or am i on the wrong track and will doing so not change a thing? I hope I'm making sense 😉 Best regards, Manny
Algorithm Updates | | Manny20000 -
Is There Any Problem For Google When We Use Capital Letters in the Beginning of Each Word in TITLE?
I'm just wandering is there any difference when we use "Cheap Holidays to Egypt" or "Cheap holidays to Egypt". It is easier for users to read first option but would the second be more relevant for crawls?
Algorithm Updates | | fleetway0 -
"Revisit-after" Metatag = Why use it?
Hi Mozfans, Just been thinking about the robots revisit metatag, all pages on my website (200+ pages) have the following tag on them; name="revisit-after" content="7 days" /> I'm wondering what is the purpose of the tag? Surely isn't it best to allow robots (such as Googlebot or Bingbot) to crawl your site as often as possible so the index and rankings get updated as quickly as possible? Thanks in advance everyone! Ash
Algorithm Updates | | AshSEO20110 -
Using Brand Name in Page titles
Is it a good practice to append our brand name at the end of every page title? We have a very strong brand name but it is also long. Right now what we are doing is saying: Product Name | Long brand name here Product Category | Long brand name here Is this the right way to do it or should we just be going with ONLY the product and category names in our page titles? Right now we often exceed the 70 character recommendation limit.
Algorithm Updates | | mlentner1 -
Will google punish us for using formulaic keyword-rich content on different pages on our site?
We have 100 to 150 words of SEO text per page on www.storitz.com. Our challenge is that we are a storage property aggregator with hundreds of metros. We have to distinguish each city with relevant and umique text. If we use a modular approach where we mix and match pre-written (by us) content, demographic and location oriented text in an attempt to create relevant and unique text for multiple (hundreds) of pages on our site, will we be devalued by Google?
Algorithm Updates | | Storitz0