Subdomain versus Subfolder for Local SEO
-
Hello Moz World,
I'm wanting to know the best practices for utilizing a subdomain versus a subfolder for multi location businesses, i.e. miami.example.com vs. example.com/miami; I would think that that utilizing the subdomain would make more sense for a national organization with many differing locations, while a subfolder would make more sense for a smaller more nearby locations. I wanted to know if anyone has any a/b examples or when it should go one way or another?
Thank you,
Kristin Miller
-
Hi Richard, I understand that it gets posted about in fair detail , but I do feel that the issue of when trying to create a branded enterprise for an SMB that's trying to move toward franchising is typically not addressed. This was a particular situation I was inquiring about not just a general inquiry about subdomains versus subfolders.
-
Good points all Richard!
"Those that don't have Google+ and haven't setup social and other profiles or have NAP listings typically rank poorly even if they are EMD."
Yes, sorry I should have qualified I was only talking about local listings in the pack. In regular organic it's somewhat different. The specific potential benefit I was pointing out, only works for local pinned listings. And Google mainly seems to still like EMDs and PMDs in local pack listings .
But like you said you can't just do any one thing and expect to rank. You can have a subdomain or even an EMD and if everything else isn't optimized well or there are violations or the competition is stronger, you still may not rank.
-
Linda, I think the reason EMDs still work is because of their citations and links from those and branded profiles. Mostly, these type of links don't show in tools like OSE and Ahrefs. If you really look, those that have an address, and Google+ listing will have a lot more listings elsewhere because of syndication and include keyword rich titles, content on the page, etc. Those that don't have Google+ and haven't setup social and other profiles or have NAP listings typically rank poorly even if they are EMD. The other trend I've noticed is that some of these rank well for variations of their phrase (because I feel they are getting special treatment as a brand) but for something in the same niche but not included in their brand terms, they don't necessarily rank well for.
-
However, just an FYI with something else to consider. I've been meaning to do a post about this with examples, so this Q will hopefully motivate me to get it done...
We know how Google loves EMDs and PMDs in local. In competitive markets they are usually the ones that rank on top.
If the link on the G+ L page is domain.com/miami. Then what shows on the G+ L page AND in the SERPs is simply domain.com
However if the link on the G+ L page is miami.domain.com then city ends up showing on the domain on G+ L and in the SERPS.
Example: See Mr Rooter in the B spot here: https://www.google.com/search?q=memphis+plumber
In the SERPs in the URL Memphis is highlighted by Google since the query was Memphis Plumber.And Memphis is in the URL on the G+ L and shows up like this: memphis.mrrooter.com where otherwise memphis would be cut off and not showing on the page: https://plus.google.com/101436210710682267977/about (Not a client or anything, just one of many random examples I've been collecting for my subdomain post)
Now I'm not saying you should use subdomains just for this reason. And not even saying it will necessarily help ranking, even though I've seen tons of subdomains that rank high.
Just throwing it out there for consideration and think the benefits should be weighed against the other pros and cons.
What do you think? Do you think having city in the URL in the SERPs and on the G+ L page could possibly help with ranking in that city?
-
Hi Kristin,
While I don't have any a/b testing to share on this, I personally prefer the subfolder approach and would write the URL:
I simply find subfolders easier to work with, but that's a matter of opinion.
-
This is probably the number one question asked in the Q&A section. I think it gets answered about every week. Subfolder is preferred as subdomains can potentially be treated as a separate website. Keep them in subfolders and you'll help the entire site.
-
Additionally, for a larger practice I feel that a subdomain logically makes more sense to be able to market a franchise as a whole. Then utilizing the subdomains to optiize an individual location level.
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
-
Weird: Local Landing Page Not Showing In "City + Brand" Search Query
Hi Mozzers, I've noticed something strange that I can't quite wrap my head around. I'm hoping it's an easy fix and I'm just overlooking something. Backstory: I'm managing all things digital for a local flooring retailer that has 6 showrooms in the region. I've done basic local SEO - local landing pages with proper markup, GMB set up and verification, Moz Local scores are in the 80% range for each location and improving steadily, etc. However, one of my locations is way behind all of the others in both organic searches and the map. Recently, I did a search for "city + brand" for this particular location in an incognito window and the page came up on the 4th page. When I perform the same search for any of the other locations, the respective landing page come up 1st or 2nd along with the homepage. I even searched using the title tag as well as a few more specific searches and still nothing on the first page. This is weird, right? Has anyone experienced this before? Search Console came back perfect, so no penalties and it's definitely being indexed. For reference, the page I am referring to is http://www.nextdayfloors.net/locations/columbia/ and the location query I am using is "Columbia, MD" Any help is much appreciated! Thanks! Tim
Local Website Optimization | | AinsleyAgency0 -
Ranking for similar local keywords
Hello All, It's my first day using a Moz Pro account and it all seems really good so far! Our business has 26 stores throughout the UK so I created a store locator page that has a page for each store. Inside here, I've created unique content for the same products for each store and it's really working wonders. The problem here though is one of my locations (Rotherham) contains two stores - so I feel that they'll both be fighting for the position all of the time. Would a canonical tag be suitable for this? I do need both pages to appear in Google's map results but as for organic rankings of keywords - it shouldn't matter too much if just one page appears. Thanks! Liam
Local Website Optimization | | LiamMcArthur0 -
Local SEO - Adding the location to the URL
Hi there, My client has a product URL: www.company.com/product. They are only serving one state in the US. The existing URL is ranking in a position between 8-15 at the moment for local searches. Would it be interesting to add the location to the URL in order to get a higher position or is it dangerous as we have our rankings at the moment. Is it really giving you an advantage that is worth the risk? Thank you for your opinions!
Local Website Optimization | | WeAreDigital_BE
Sander0 -
Understand how site redesign impacts SEO
Hi everyone, I have, what I think, is kind of a specific question, but hoping you guys can help me figure out what to do. I have a client that recently changed their entire website (I started working with them after it happened, so I can't comment on what the site was like as far as content was before). I know they were using a service that I see a lot of in the service industry that aim to capitalize on local business (i.e. "leads nearby" or "nearby now") by creating pages for each targeted city and I believe collecting reviews for each city directly on the website. When they redesigned their website, they dropped that service and now all those pages that were ranking in SERPs are coming back as 404s because they are not included in the new site (I apologize if this is getting confusing!) The site that they moved to is a template site that they purchased the rights to from an already successful company in their same industry, so I do think the link structure probably changed, especially with all of the local pages that are no longer available on the site. Note: I want to use discretion in using company names, but happy to share more info in a private message if you'd like to see the sites I am talking about as I have a feeling that this is getting confusing 🙂 Has anyone had experience with something like this? I am concerned because even though I am targeting the keywords being used previously to direct content to the local pages to new existing pages, traffic to the website has dropped by nearly 60% and I know my clients are going to want answers-- and right now, I only have guesses. I am really looking forward to and so greatly appreciate any advice you might be able to share, I'm at a bit of a loss right now.
Local Website Optimization | | KaitlinNS0 -
Local SEO HELP for Franchise SAB Business
This all began when I was asked to develop experiment parameters for our content protocol & strategy. It should be simple right? I've reviewed A/B testing tips for days now, from Moz and other sources.I'm totally amped and ready to begin testing in Google Analytics. Say we have a restoration service franchise with over 40 franchises we perform SEO for. They are all over the US. Every franchise has their own local website. Example restorationcompanylosangeles.com Every franchise purchases territories in which they want to rank in. Some service over 100 cities. Most franchises also have PPC campaigns. As a part of our strategy we incorporate the location reach data from Adwords to focus on their high reach locations first. We have 'power pages' which include 5 high reach branch preferences (areas in which the owners prefer to target) and 5 non branch preference high reach locations. We are working heavily on our National brand presence & working with PR and local news companies to build relationships for natural backlinks. We are developing a strategy for social media for national brand outlets and local outlets. We are using major aggregators to distribute our local citation for our branch offices. We make sure all NAP is consistent across all citations. We are partners with Google so we work with them on new branches that are developing to create their Google listings (MyBusiness & G+). We use local business schema markup for all pages. Our content protocol encompasses all the needed onsite optimization tactics; meta, titles, schema, placement of keywords, semantic Q&A & internal linking strategies etc. Our leads are calls and form submissions. We use several call tracking services to monitor calls, caller's location etc. We are testing Callrail to start monitoring landing pages and keywords that generating our leads. Parts that I want to change: Some of the local sites have over 100 pages targeted for 'water damage + city ' aka what Moz would call "Doorway pages. " These pages have 600-1000 words all talking about services we provide. Although our writers (4 of them) manipulate them in a way so that they aren't duplicate pages. They add about 100 words about the city location. This is the only unique variable. We pump out about 10 new local pages a month per site - so yes - over 300 local pages a month. Traffic to the local sites is very scarce. Content protocol / strategy is only tested based on ranking! We have a tool that monitors ranking on all domains. This does not count for mobile, local, nor user based preference searching like Google Now. My team is deeply attached to basing our metrics solely on ranking. The logic behind this is that if there is no local city page existing for a targeted location, there is less likelihood of ranking for that location. If you are not seen then you will not get traffic nor leads. Ranking for power locations is poor - while less competitive low reach locations rank ok. We are updating content protocol by tweaking small things (multiple variants at a time). They will check ranking everyday for about a week to determine whether that experiment was a success or not. What I need: Internal duplicate content analyzer - to prove that writing over 400 pages a month about water damage + city IS duplicate content. Unique content for 'Power pages' - I know based on dozens of chats here on the community and in MOZ blogs that we can only truly create quality content for 5-10 pages. Meaning we need to narrow down what locations are most important to us and beef them up. Creating blog content for non 'power' locations. Develop new experiment protocol based on metrics like traffic, impressions, bounce rate landing page analysis, domain authority etc. Dig deeper into call metrics and their sources. Now I am at a roadblock because I cannot develop valid content experimenting parameters based on ranking. I know that a/b testing requires testing two pages that are same except the one variable. We'd either non index these or canonicalize.. both are not in favor of testing ranking for the same term. Questions: Are all these local pages duplicate content? Is there a such thing as content experiments based solely on ranking? Any other suggestions for this scenario?
Local Website Optimization | | MilestoneSEO_LA1 -
Localize Homepage, or service pages?
Hi so I am curious if a homepage may carry the most link juice, then if you service an entire state, do you include the state name as a keyword in your homepage title to get noticed, or the company brand, resulting in adding service area pages to cater to unique each city that you service? I am just not sure if Google is smart enough to know you service a state? I have my local page with a service area, but is this all I need? So I would not need to add a state name. Like I build horse barns, pole barns, metal buildings, and indoor riding arenas. So I am curious if you would do a title tag like Colorado Builders - Barns, Buildings, and Arenas Or maybe Colorado at the end? Or not at all Thanks for any tips.
Local Website Optimization | | asbchris0 -
How slow can a website be, but still be ok for visitors and seo?
Hello to all, my site http://www.allspecialtybuildings.com is a barn construction site. Our visitors are usually local. I am worried about page speed. I have been using Google Page Insight, and Gtmetrix. Although I cannot figure out browser leveraging, I have a 79 / 93 google score and for gtmetrix 98/87 score. Load times vary between 2.13 secs to 2.54 secs What is acceptable? I want to make sure I get Google love for a decent page speed, but for me these times are great. Bad times are like 7 seconds and higher. I have thought about a CDN, yet I have read horror stories too. I have ZERO idea of how to use a CDN, or if I need it. I just want a fast site that is both user and Google speed friendly. So my question is, what is a slow speed for a website? Is under 3 seconds considered ok? or bad for seo? But any advice is greatly appreciated.
Local Website Optimization | | asbchris0 -
Bing ranking a weak local branch office site of our 200-unit franchise higher than the brand page - throughout the USA!?
We have a brand with a major website at ourbrand.com. I'm using stand-ins for the actual brandname. The brand is a unique term, has 200 local offices with sites at ourbrand.com/locations/locationname, and is structured with best practices, and has a well built sitemap.xml. The link profile is diverse and solid. There are very few crawl errors and no warnings in Google Webmaster central. Each location has schema.org markup that has been checked with markup validation tools. No matter what tool you use, and how you look at it t's obvious this is the brand site. DA 51/100, PA 59/100. A rouge franchisee has broken their agreement and made their own site in a city on a different domain name, ourbrandseattle.com. The site is clearly optimized for that city, and has a weak inbound link profile. DA 18/100, PA 21/100. The link profile has low diversity and generally weak. They have no social media activity. They have not linked to ourbrand.com <- my leading theory. **The problem is that this rogue site is OUT RANKING the brand site all over the USA on Bing. **Even where it makes no sense at all. We are using whitespark.ca to check our ranking remotely in other cities and try to remove the effects of local personalization. What should we do? What have I missed?
Local Website Optimization | | scottclark0