Should we stream videos from a subdomain or subfolder?
-
This is causing some hand-wrangling and I need some help.
Let's say we were developing rich video content for our products and our agency is hosting the content on a new external server. There are already plans to link to these videos from product detail pages, category pages, and landing pages on our main website: www.example.com.
Would it be better to create a new subdomain or to use a subfolder with a reverse proxy technique for this video content? It's not truly a microsite and will not have a gallery page to navigate the various videos.
For example, would it be better to use this: video.example.com/
...or this (executed with a reverse proxy www.example.com/video/
Of course, regardless of whether this new content will live on a subdomain or within a subfolder, we plan on creating a video Sitemap using guidance from Justin Hammack in this terrific post.
-
Thanks, Phil! I really appreciate your insights.
-
Cool.
To be honest, it really doesn't matter a great deal. i would be inclined to go down the subdomain route - just because it makes it easier if you want to shift things up and move them to another domain later on, but that's entirely personal preference.
Often video files are hosted on totally different domains, such as when you're using a 3rd party player and hosting solution and it doesn't seem to make any difference with regards to getting good video results.
-
Totally correct.
-
Hey Ryan,
I'm just want to be clear that i understand what you're planning here. Are you going to embed the videos on product pages across the site, but are wondering whether the actual video files (the .mov/.mp4 files) should be held on a subdomain or subfolder?
Thanks,
Phil
-
I believe it doesn't matter as the only concern is speed and it has nothing to do with SEO.
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
-
Choosing root domain for a subdomain
We own two root domains in the .edu space. According to Open Site Explorer, one has a domain authority of 76, while the other has a DA of 94. We operate a collection of degree microsites as subdomains of the lower-ranking root domain, e.g. www.degreename.domain76.edu. All other things being equal, would these sites benefit if we migrated them to www.degreename.domain94.edu? The question seems to hinge on whether subdomains inherit any of the root domain's authority, and the answers I have seen to that question are "sometimes" and "maybe". Lastly, as an alternative, would we realize greater SEO improvements by moving the degrees to a directory structure under domain94, i.e. www.domain94.edu/degrees/degree-name? Thank you for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | UWPCE0 -
Why do people put xml sitemaps in subfolders? Why not just the root? What's the best solution?
Just read this: "The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/." here: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location Yet surely it's better to put the sitemaps at the root so you have:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
(a) http://example.com/sitemap.xml
http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml
http://example.com/sitemap-spongecakes.xml
and so on... OR this kind of approach -
(b) http://example/com/sitemap.xml
http://example.com/sitemap/chocolatecakes.xml and
http://example.com/sitemap/spongecakes.xml I would tend towards (a) rather than (b) - which is the best option? Also, can I keep the structure the same for sitemaps that are subcategories of other sitemaps - for example - for a subcategory of http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml I might create http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes-cherryicing.xml - or should I add a sub folder to turn it into http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes/cherryicing.xml Look forward to reading your comments - Luke0 -
Is our Third Party Subdomain hurting our SERPs?
Hello! Our Moz report under the root domain godelta.com displays 696 high priority issues that we cannot control that are all caused by a third party subdomain. promotionalproducts.godelta.com We don’t have any control of the SEO on the third party website. Our blog posts link to the third party subdomain from our blog subdomain. blog.godelta.com Is the third party subdomain affecting our SERP and should we replace the subdomain with its own domain name? Hopefully we can clear this up and end the debate with our internal team and our HubSpot account manager. David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wakadaca0 -
Dev Subdomain Pages Indexed - How to Remove
I own a website (domain.com) and used the subdomain "dev.domain.com" while adding a new section to the site (as a development link). I forgot to block the dev.domain.com in my robots file, and google indexed all of the dev pages (around 100 of them). I blocked the site (dev.domain.com) in robots, and then proceeded to just delete the entire subdomain altogether. It's been about a week now and I still see the subdomain pages indexed on Google. How do I get these pages removed from Google? Are they causing duplicate content/title issues, or does Google know that it's a development subdomain and it's just taking time for them to recognize that I deleted it already?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Adding video snippet caused drop of star rating snippet in google SERP. Any solution to show both?
We are using on our product pages review schema markup which showed up well in google SERP. Now we added schema video markup as well and google shows in SERP now only the video snippet, but not the review snippet anymore. Any idea whether there may be a solution to show both video and review snippets?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse0 -
Moving Part of a Website to a Subdomain to Remove Panda Penalty?
I have lots of news on my website and unlike other types of content, news posts quickly become obsolete and get a high bounce rate. I have reasons to think that the news on my website might be partly responsible for a Panda penalty so I'm not sure. There are over 400 news posts on the blog from the last 4 years so that's still a lot of content. I was thinking of isolating the news articles on a subdomain (news.mywebsite.com) If the news play a part in the Panda penalty, would that remove it from the main domain?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbrault740 -
Reviews and multimedia in subfolders
Hello, I had all the content of my product reviews in the product url ie /computer-brand-y-intel-i5/ and there I wrote my reviews and users did the same thing, attached images, etc Now, I have been proposed to do it this way. /computer-brand-y-intel-i5/ (here, the main specifications) /computer-brand-y-intel-i5/review/ /computer-brand-y-intel-i5/user-reviews/ /computer-brand-y-intel-i5/multimedia/ Many other websites have the same specifications so with my reviews etc I enriched the main url. What do you think is the best option to go? Thanks a lot and regards
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | antorome0 -
If you host a video on another site will you get credit for it?
If we host the video on a third party player & use their player (such as Brightcove), will we get credit for the video (will it show in SERPs on our domain? Or, do we need to host it on our own site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0