Sub-directories or Nah
-
Hey MOz Squad,
So I have a locksmith company with 7 locations all up and down the west coast. We set up each location in a sub-directory (mainly because they used to have other websites for these locations and we wanted to try and keep the juice so we 301 redirected back to these subdiretories)
But it's making our efforts so tough because every time I want to change something I have to do it seven times!
DO the sub directories really matter that munch for rank? One of my partners says google treats it like it own website and trying to rank just a page on a website for a certain city is harder. What do you guys think Keep the subs or ditch em?
-
Hi Meier!
Very good feedback from the community, and scenario you are describing is why most Local SEOs would recommend the approach of a single domain with landing pages on it for each of the 7 locations. This way, every single thing that you do to build up the brand simultaneously benefits all the locations, instead of this requiring 7 separate efforts every time you want to make a marketing decision.
-
Hi Meier,
I completely agree with Matt. In theory, you can get a better focus by having a separate domain for each location. In practice though, the amount of work required to do this just isn't worth it.
As Matt mentioned, you'll need to build 2 link profiles, write 2 sets of content (without them being duplicate!), manage and optimise 2 sites etc.
Just create and optimise a separate page for each location and make sure the site structure/nav makes sense.
-
Hi Meier,
Since Google will recognize each subdomain as effectively its own site, each one will have to rank on its own terms. la.website.com won't get any benefit from links pointing at sf.website.com, for example.
Personally, I think the subdomains just make things harder.
-
I like where you are going with this.
So would it help SEO if google treated these as separate entities though? I have had websites where I am trying to rank for other location by making a page for that city and it just seems tougher.
-
What your friend is talking about is actually a subdomain, not a subdirectory. If you had subdomains like sf.website.com and la.website.com then yes, they're be treated as separate entities. Subfolders aren't that much of a big deal.
That said, the simpler your site structure, the better. It's going to help your crawl budget and if you have the opportunity to simplify a site you plan to work on for years, why not spend a few hours doing it now and save yourself the heartache for years to come?
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
-
Geo-Targeted Sub-Domains & Duplicate Content/Canonical
For background the sub domain structure here is inherited and commited to due to tech restrictions with some of our platforms. The brand I work with is splitting out their global site into regional sub sites (not too relevant but this is in order to display seasonal product in different hemispheres and to link to stores specific to the region). All sub-domains except EU will be geo-targeted to their relevant country. Regions and sub domains for reference: AU - Australia CA - Canada CH - Switzeraland EU - All Euro zone countries NZ - New Zealand US - United States This will be done with Wordpress multisite. The set up allows to publish content on one 'master' sub site and then decide which other sub sites to 'broadcast' to. Some content is specific to a sub-domain/region so no issue with duplicate and can set the sub-site version as canonical. However some content will appear on all sub-domains. au.example.com/awesome-content/ nz.example.com/awesome-content/ Now first question is since these domains are geo-targeted should I just have them all canonical to the version on that sub-domain? eg Or should I still signal the duplicate content with one canonical version? Essentially the top level example.com exists as a site only for publishing purposes - if a user lands on the top level example.com/awesome-content/ they are given a pop up to select region and redirected to the relevant sub-domain version. So I'm also unsure whether I want that content indexed at all?? I could make the top level example.com versions of all content be the canonical that all others point to eg. and rely on geo-targeting to have the right links show in the right search locations. I hope that's kind of clear?? Obviously I find it confusing and therefore hard to relay! Any feedback at all gratefully received. Cheers, Steve
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveHoney0 -
Sub-domain vs Root domain
I have recently taken over a website (website A) that has a domain authority of 33/100 and is linked to from 39 root domains. I have not yet selected any keywords to target so am currently unsure of ranking positions. However, website A is for a division of a company that has its own separate website (website B) which has a domain authority of 58/100 and over 1000 legitimate linking root domains. I have the option of moving website A to a sub-domain of website B. I also have the option of having website B provide a followed link to website A. So, my question is, for SEO purposes, is my website better off remaining on its own existing domain or is it likely to rank higher as a sub-domain of website B? I am sure there are pros and cons for both options but some opinions would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BallyhooLtd0 -
What is the benefit of directory pages?
I recently started at a new job running ecommerce websites. We sell yoga equipment and on 2 of our sites we built directory pages for yoga studios to list their calendars and whatnot. They are pretty old and out of date, but my question is, is there any benefit to these types of directories? If they do, we need to look at refreshing them. But if not, then they need to go. One of them is here. http://www.everythingyoga.com/studios.aspx Like I said, it is out of date.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShockoeCommerce0 -
Directories that Redirect - Do They Pass Link Juice?
I did some searching before asking but could not quite find what I was looking for. There are valid directories out there that provide business as well as links that provide SEO value. My question is whether or not having a redirect in place negates passing any link juice. When I use Open Site Explorer for Old Monterey Inn, this directory (CABBI) does not show up on their list. However, their website dropped from Google Analytics altogether for some time because of an issue in how they built their site. Their "fix" is this redirect which was integrated a short time ago. I do see traffic in Google Analytics now but wonder about the link juice. Example: <a href="[/redirect?type=website&inn=34211&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oldmontereyinn.com](view-source:https://www.cabbi.com/redirect?type=website&inn=34211&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oldmontereyinn.com)" target="<a class="attribute-value">_blank</a>">www.oldmontereyinn.coma>p> What say you? Thanks to anyone that responds.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColoradoMarketingTeam0 -
Is having all your media hosted on a sub-domain bad?
I just realized yesterday while doing some audit work on our site (which is still relatively new) that all of our audio assets are stored on a separate sub-domain. We are an eCommerce site that sells audio books, and every product page has a sample audio file to listen to. But all those files are stored on a sub-domain of the main site. "cdn-media.oursite.com". First, I understand that media(our audio files) has some inherent SEO value if hosted correctly. Is that true? And if so, how important would you think it is? Secondly, assuming that it does have value, are we losing that value by having them hosted on a sub-domain? I have read things that say sub-domains are bad, and I have read things that say that Google at least has been treating sub-domains as sub-folders, but I can't find anything definitive one way or the other. On another note, another thing I saw is that people are linking to the sound files directly in various places, and those links are going to the sub-domain, not the main domain. There aren't even pages on the sub-domain, just the files, so those links deliver a "visitor" to a page that is completely blank except for a tiny little audio player. Not sure what to do about that, but that can't be good one way or the other right? How big of a problem is this really? Is it worth me going to our IT dept. and trying to change it? It sounds like it would be a pretty big deal to change, so I'll need a few voices to back me up if that's the case.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DownPour0 -
Duplicate Sub-domains Being Indexed
Hi all, I have this site that has a sub-domain that is meant to be a "support" for clients. Some sort of FAQ pages, if you will. A lot of them are dynamic URLs, hence, the title and most of the content are duplicated. Crawl Diagnostics found 52 duplicate content, 138 duplicate title and a lot other errors. My question is, what would be the best practice to fix this issue? Should I noindex and nofollow all of its subdomains? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdwardDennis0 -
Free Directories - Yes or No?
Clearly, we see that high authority directories like Dmoz.Org are effective, even if this big monster is practically dead because of how unresponsive it is. What about other free directories? Is it worth obtaining as many listings as possible in the free directories? what about the paid ones? Is this still good SEO strategy if the directories have at least a PR3-4 or many cases higher? I'm asking this for an established site, so I understand that it won't help for deep-linking and anchor text, but will it help anyway to get links from these? If you like this post, help me out by giving me a Big Thumbs Up!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | applesofgold0 -
I tried the directorie list of seomoz, but almost all of them charged for the inclusion. This is a black hat situation?
I need backlinks for my site, and several places inform that directories are a good place. But they charge for the inclusion. Should I pay? This is a blackhat situation where I'm buying for links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Naghirniac0