What is better for web ranking? A domain or subdomain?
-
I realise that often it is better put content in a subfolder rather than a subdomain, but I have another question that I cannot seem to find the answer to.
Is there any ranking benefit to having a site on a .co.uk or .com domain rather than on a subdomain? I'm guessing that the subdomain might benefit from other content on the domain it's hosted on, but are subdomains weighted down in any way in the search results?
-
Glad I could help
Best wishes,
Don
-
Thanks for the clarification Don - much appreciated
-
I think the answer is basically the same.
The answer is they will be treated differently. You won't see a direct benefit from latching on to the main domain.
In some cases it does make sense to use sub-domains for example, forums.domain.com. This gives the user both keywords forums & domain name (an indirect benefit). It makes it easier to manage content in a CMS by having the forums on a sub-domain. Heck Google does this for many of its products as does Amazon. In most cases these are services offered by the main domain. For example: Google->Ad-Words, Google->Translate, Amazon->Seller Centeral etc..
However if they are completely different items or services I would just use a different domain completely. I would point to my work for an example. I work for a custom rubber manufacturer who's primary focus is working on new product development and manufacturing for OEM's . But some of the products on our website were generating a lot of interest and phone calls from smaller opportunities. Instead of ignoring this option and potential revenue we built a distribution site (On a different domain) to handle these smaller opportunities. Had we done this on a sub-domain we could have confused larger OEM clients by thinking we are a retailer or middle man, when in fact we are a manufacturer.
I hope that clears things up, really evaluate the reason for the sub-domain if it is a sub-product / service by the main domain and there is no clear conflict for making it a sub-domain then okay, otherwise and in most cases it will likely make more sense to use a different domain completely.
This is my thoughts I hope it helps,
Don
-
Thanks for your response Donford and for the link.
The question I am asking is slightly different (I think!). If you were setting up a completely new website, would that website rank better on it's own separate domain.
For example, if I setup a website called www.widgets.com would Google prefer that to widgets.maindomain.co.uk? Or is there no difference at all?
I guess what I'm trying to find out is whether there is any difference at all between setting up a new website on a subdomain or domain, or whether Google treats these as the same.
-
Hello,
A subdomain is treated as its own domain and will rank separately from the main domain. There are a couple of reason I can think of to use a sub-domain but by in large it is more productive to use the main domain.
Matt Cutts (Google) talked about this several years ago here is a link for you: https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/
The notable thing in Matt Cutts blog post is how they treat domains and sub-domains separately. This is actually important for sites that host others content. Think blog domains for example.
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
-
How Much Domain Age Matter In Ranking?
I am very confused about domain age. I read many articles about domain age, some experts say domain age does matter in ranking and some experts say it doesn't matter in the ranking. Kindly guide me about domain age.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MuhammadQasimAttari0 -
301 Redirecting from domain to subdomain
We're taking on a redesign of our corporate site on our main domain. We also have a number of well established, product based subdomains. There are a number of content pages that currently live on the corporate site that rank well, and bring in a great deal of traffic, though we are considering placing 301 redirects in place to point that traffic to the appropriate pages on the subdomains. If redirected correctly, can we expect the SEO value of the content pages currently living on the corporate site to transfer to the subdomains, or will we be negatively impacting our SEO by transferring this content from one domain to multiple subdomains?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris81980 -
.Com version of my site is ranking better than .co.uk for my UK Website for branded search. 301 redirect mess
Dear Mozzers, I have an issue with my UK Website (short url is - http://goo.gl/dJ7IgD ) whereby when I type my company name in to google.co.uk search the .com version returns in Search as opposed to the .co.uk and from looking at open site explorer the page rank of the .com is higher than the .co.uk ?. Infact I cant even see the .co.uk homepage version but other pages from my site. The .com version is also 301'd to the .co.uk. From looking at Open Site Explorer, I have noticed that we have more links pointing to .com as opposed to .co.uk. Alot of these are from our own separate microsites which we closed down last year and I have noticed the IT company who closed them down for some reason 301'd them to the .com version of our site as opposed to the .co.uk but If I look in http://httpstatus.io/ (http status checker tool) to check one of these mircosites it shows - 301 - 302 - 200 status codes which to me looks wrong ?. I am wondering what it should read ... e.g should it just be a 301 to a 200 status code ?. My Website short url is - http://goo.gl/dJ7IgD and an example of some of 10 microsites we closed down last year which seems to be redirected to .com is http://goo.gl/BkcIjy and http://goo.gl/kogJ02 As these were redirected almost a year ago - it is okay if I now get them redirected to the .co.uk version of my site or what should I do ? They currently redirect to the home page but given that each of the microsites are based on an individual category of my main site , would it be better to 301 them to the relevant category on my site. My only concern is that , may cause to much internal linking and therefore I wont have enough links on my homepage ? How would you suggest I go about building up my .co.uk authority so it ranks betters than the .com- I am guessing this is obviously affecting my rankings and I am losing link juice with all this. Any advice greatly appreciated . thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
UPS bought a domain that was blacklisted and now we cant rank in Google
1. We have the site Holidayshuahin.com Apparently Holidayshuahin.com is on a blacklist of barracuda we think this happens when somonelse owned this domain. What does this mean for our Google rankings today? We did not optimise the site for SEO but i think it should still show up somewhere in top 100 as there are not that many pages in the niche. holidays hua hin What should we do change domain name? 2. We have 346 links from Holtidayshuahin.com to our own site Dreamestatehuahinc.om that we do not spend time to optimize on. Dreamestatehuahin.com Is not ranking as good as we expected could this have any thing to about these backlinks from our blacklisted holidayshuahin.com site? Also when so many links, should i make them no follow link, what would be best for the link profile of dreamestatehuahin.com in context of links from holidayhuahin.com Look forward for your answers thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nm19770 -
If we remove all of the content for a branch office in one city from a web site, will it harm rankings for the other branches?
We have a client with a large, multi-city home services business. The service offerings vary from city to city, so each branch has it's own section on a fairly large (~6,000 pages) web site. Each branch drives a significant amount of revenue from organic searches specific to its geographic location (ex: Houston plumbers or Fort Worth landscaping). Recently, one of the larger branches has decided that it wants its own web site on a new domain because they have been convinced by an SEO firm that they can get better results with a standalone site. That branch wants us to remove all of its content (700-800 pages) on the current site and has said we can 301 all inbound links to the removed content to other pages on the existing site to mitigate any loss to domain authority. The other branch managers want to know if removing this city-specific content could negatively impact search rankings for their cities. On the surface it seems like as long as we have proper redirects in place, the other branches should be okay. Am I missing something?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | monkeeboy0 -
Move webshop domain to the brand domain?
Hello, A client of mine has a brand with a website for over 10 years now.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Seeders
About 4 years ago the have opened a webshop on an other domain (like www.brandnamewebshop.com). At this moment the brand domain has a seomoz authority of 45.
The webshop domain authority is 25. The question:
Would it not be better to transfer the webshop to the brand domain because of the domain authority? If so, how can this be done the best way? With a 301?
I also think: what a loss of energy of building the authority on the other domain.
Is it an idea to use both domains for a webshop and rewrite the content? Or is there an other way to still make use of the built up domain authority? Would it really help the other domain when I make a 301 redirect (and make use of the pointing links to the webshop domain?). I hope somebody have some experience with this...
Looking forward to the possibilities! Gerjan0 -
SEO for one web site two domains
I have web site www.sxxxcafe.com and there is a another domain for the same like xxx.com .How can i use second domain for the same web site keeping SEO up and without loosing ranking .
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | innofidelity0 -
Does poor quality on a subdomain affect a domain (with regards to Panda)?
We are considering moving some thin content from our site to a subdomain as a potential "panda" fix. But, we are unsure if Google will treat the subdomain as a completely separate domain or not. Does anyone have any data / Google info that might answer this question? Thanks in advance for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0