New Sub-domains or New Directories for 10+ Year Domain?
-
We've got a one-page, 10+ year old domain that has a 65/100 domain authority that gets about 10k page views a day (I'm happy to share the URL but didn't know if that's permitted).
The content changes daily (it's a daily bible verse) so most of this question is focused on domain authority, not the content.
We're getting ready to provide translations of that daily content in 4 languages. Would it be better to create sub-domains for those translations (same content, different language) or sub-folders?
Example:
http://cn.example.com
http://es.example.com
http://ru.example.comor
http://example.com/cn
http://example.com/es
http://example.com/ruWe're able to do either but want to pick the one that would give the translated version the most authority both now and moving forward. (We definitely don't want to penalize the root domain.)
Thanks in advance for your input.
-
Would it be better to create sub-domains for those translations (same content, different language) or sub-folders?
You can safely use either method. For the most part it is solely a matter of your preference. Neither choice has a SEO benefit nor disadvantage when compared to the other.
If it was my site, I would choose to go with the subdomain approach as a means of separating the content. The site structure would be identical other then the prefix. It would be easiest to manage in my opinion.
But who am I? How about listening to Matt Cutt's opinion
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/
-
You should put them in folders in order to pass your domain authority to them. If you put them in subdomains you'll have to start building their domain authority from scratch.
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
-
Moving Shopify from a Sub Domain to the Full Domain
Apologies if this has been asked before. Currently we have a Shopify shop on a subdomain shop.lucybee.com a blog on subdomain blog.lucybee.com and the full domain of course. We'd now like to move everything onto Shopify on the full domain. Therefore the blog rolls into Shopify. We'll manually move pages into Shopify. Any advice or links to resources on how to manage would be gratefully received. Thank you , Jim
Technical SEO | | LucyBee0 -
Multilingual Website - Sub-domain VS Sub-directory
Hi Folks - Need your advice on the pros and cons of going with a sub-domain vs a sub-directory approach for a multi lingual website. The best would be a ccTLD but that is not possible now, so I would be more interested in knowing your take on these 2 options. Though, I have gone through http://www.stateofsearch.com/international-multilingual-sites-criteria-to-establish-seo-friendly-structure/ and this somewhat vouches for a sub-directory, but what would you say'?
Technical SEO | | RanjeetP0 -
New domain's Sitemap.xml file loaded to old domain - how does this effect SEO?
I have a client who recently changed their domain when they redesigned their site. The client wanted the old site to remain live for existing customers with links to the new domain. I guess as a workaround, the developer loaded the new domain's sitemap.xml file to the old domain. What SEO ramifications would this have if any on the primary (new) domain?
Technical SEO | | julesae0 -
Redirect to new domain
We are moving our website from http://mysyncpad.com to http://syncpadapp.com The old site ranks pretty well for some specific keywords, will a 301 allow the new site to rank as well or will it be penalized by good for the transfer?
Technical SEO | | fifthlayer0 -
When to 301 a No1 ranking site to the new domain?
I have a site [company.com] that ranks number one for the products of my brand but I'm moving all the efforts to a dedicated brand domain. The old site covered a number of small brands and we had no dedicated brand sites, but we now focus on just this one brand and it doesn't belong on the old company domain name. BRAND belongs on the new brand.com Because of the age of the old company site and because it had the first copy about the brand, it's still ranking well for the brand product names, and the new site has some duplicate content issues that I'm in the throws of resolving. RANKS Company.com : number one for all product names Brand.com : nowhere for product brand names but top for the brand name (as I say, the product pages on this site have duplicate content issues which is likely keeping them ranked low - Hades low. I would rather not maintain two websites and I want to give brand.com every bit of available oomph , so should I at some point 301 the old company site to the new one? If so, is now the time? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Brocberry0 -
Keyword in Domain or not?
My on page optimization grade is an "A" with the following factors; Factor Overview <dl class="scoreboard clearfix"> <dt>Critical Factors</dt> <dd>4 / 4</dd> <dt>High Importance Factors</dt> <dd>7 / 7</dd> <dt>Moderate Importance Factors</dt> <dd>8 / 9</dd> <dt>Low Importance Factors</dt> <dd>11 / 11</dd> <dt>Optional Factors</dt> <dd>5 / 5</dd> </dl> The main thing I appear to be missing is keywords in my URL. How truly important is that in today's SEO world and how much time or ranking would be lost if I do not have control to change the external links to my website if I decided to migrate to a keyword relevant url?
Technical SEO | | classa0 -
301 redirect domain to page on another domain
Hi, If I wanted to do a 301 permanent redirect on a domain to a page on another domain will this cause any problems? Lets say I have 4 domains (all indexed with content), I decide to create a new domain with 4 pages, one for each domain. I copy the content from the old domains to the relevant page on the new domain and set it live. At the same time as setting the new site live I do a 301 permanent redirect on the 4 domains to the relevant pages on the new domain. What happens if Google indexes the new site before visiting the redirected domains, could this cause a duplicate content penalty? Cheers
Technical SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Redirecting root domains to sub domains
Mozzers: We have a instance where a client is looking to 301 a www.example.com to www.example.com/shop I know of several issues with this but wondered if anyone could chip in with any previous experiences of doing so, and what outcomes positive and negative came out of this. Issues I'm aware of: The root domain URL is the most linked page, a HTTP 301 redirect only passes about 90% of the value. you'll loose 10-15% of your link value of these links. navigational queries (i.e.: the "domain part" of "domain.tld") are less likely to produce google site-links less deep-crawling: google crawls top down - starts with the most linked page, which will most likely be your domain url. as this does not exist you waste this zero level of crawling depth. robots.txt is only allowed on the root of the domain. Your help as always is greatly appreciated. Sean
Technical SEO | | Yozzer0