Create new subdomain or new site for new Niche Product?
-
We have an existing large site with strong, relevant traffic, including excellent SEO traffic. The company wants to launch a new business offering, specifically targeted at the "small business" segment. Because the "small business" customer is substantially different from the traditional "large corporation" customer, the company has decided to create a completely independent microsite for the "small business" market. Purely from a Marketing and Communications standpoint, this makes sense.
From an SEO perspective, we have 2 options:
- Create the new "small business" microsite on a subdomain of the existing site, and benefit from the strong domain authority and trust of the existing site.
- Build the microsite on a separate domain with exact primary keyword match in the domain name.
My sense is that option #1 is by far the better option in the short and long run. Am I correct?
Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks to everybody who's weighed in on this discussion. Do y'all think subfolders are the way to go for new web content for a big company with a well-established website even if the main site won't do much linking to the subfolder and the covered topics are separate? Is much link mojo passed purely as a property of the domain's strength (if domain.com is reputable, domain.com/folder/ must be, too)? Or is the majority of authority established because of the internal links?
-
Thanks, Nakul.
I very much appreciate your comments and insight.
Cheers - Axel
-
As I said I completely agree with you. There's is certainly "some" level of trust passed on and WebSEO's comment sounds right, because if that would not be the case that blogs on xxxx.blogspot.com and xxxx.wordpress.com would rank like crazy. So yes, number of sub-domains on a domain as well as the interlinking between the domain and the sub-domain would certainly influence the strength of the sub-domain, a little bit more.
The most important factor here that should help you make the decision easily is the usability and brand awareness of the sub-domain when it's attached onto your main authority/brand site.
As I said above in my 1st post and EGOL agreed, it would have been much stronger if you were able to do it as a sub-folder but I understand the technology issues. You might also want to look into Reverse Proxy if sub-folder is an option.
-
Agree. Apparently domain authority and trust does not pass 100% to a subdomain. I've searched thru SEOmoz high and low and cannot find this issue being adequately addressed. (???)
But check out this Sept 2010 post by webseo: www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/multiple-domains-vs-subdomains-vs-folders-in-seo/
"WebSEOAnalytics.com team has done extensive analysis in the past on the Data that we collect from the reports of our SEO tools. Based on those data there are strong indications that a part of Authority and Trust passes to the subdomains only when the domain has a small number of subdomains and when the link structure of the main website passes enough link juice to them. "
And this post on Google Webmaster blog, suggesting that links between a subdomain and a domain are essentially seen as "internal" links.
So maybe there is some advantage passed from domain to subdomain?
I would surely love to see Rand or one of the other experts at SEOmoz give their take on this issue.
-
You are not, you are absolutely right on the way you are thinking. Except that I have not seen any of that "root domain" advantage get passed onto the sub-domain level.
If your main-domain is a brand domain, maybe you could do the sub-domain and I understand your reasoning behind it, however I would not expect the sub-domain to trickle through the SERPS and get the domain authority and trust like your root level domain does.
-
Thanks EGOL and Nakul. Agree, a subfolder would be the best solution. Unfortunately we cannot do the subfolder approach. The sites use completely different platforms/ CMS, and so the options are either subdirectory or completely new domain.
The problem with a new domain is that there is no transfer of domain trust or authority from the existing site to the new microsite. It is a painful, slow, long-term building process. It seems that with the recent Matt Cutts announcement on Google treatment of subdomains, many SEOs are now suggesting that some of the root domain equity does indeed transfer from root to subdomain.
And it actually makes more sense from a holistic user and SEO perspective to use a subdomain. The two offerings are linked from a product category perspective, with one targeted at the needs of the small business user (hence different products, messages, and look & feel), and one targeted at the traditional corporate user. No duplicate content, yet intrinsically linked. I also think that small business users will look at it positively as they see that a "strong, established brand" is behind this targeted product. I have to think that Google (and other SE) algorithms, which are trying to more and more mirror human preferences, would see the subdomain/ domain linkage as positive.
Am I "off-base" with my thinking?
-
I agree with the subfolder.
-
The sub-domain won't essentially help you. Think of your sub-domain as a separate domain, almost. If it's possible from branding and other reasons, do a sub-folder and if that does not make sense or is not doable, your best best is go got Option 2. That according to me sounds better from Search perspective both short term as well as long run.
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
-
Breaking up a site into multiple sites
Hi, I am working on plan to divide up mid-number DA website into multiple sites. So the current site's content will be divided up among these new sites. We can't share anything going forward because each site will be independent. The current homepage will change to just link out to the new sites and have minimal content. I am thinking the websites will take a hit in rankings but I don't know how much and how long the drop will last. I know if you redirect an entire domain to a new domain the impact is negligible but in this case I'm only redirecting parts of a site to a new domain. Say we rank #1 for "blue widget" on the current site. That page is going to be redirected to new site and new domain. How much of a drop can we expect? How hard will it be to rank for other new keywords say "purple widget" that we don't have now? How much link juice can i expect to pass from current website to new websites? Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | timdavis0 -
Site with both subfolders and subdomains
Hi everyone,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | medi_
I'm working on a website that has a quite extensive subfolder structure for product and multilingual purposes.
domain.com/en
domain.com/it
domain.com/fr
domain.com/en/category
domain.com/it/category
domain.com/fr/category
domain.com/en/category/product
domain.com/it/category/product
domain.com/fr/category/product
domain.com/en/category/product/region
domain.com/it/category/product/region
domain.com/fr/category/product/region
and so on... We will soon be launching a completely different service, which would make the subfolder structure become even more complex. As John Mueller recently stated that Subdomains and Subfolders are treated the same by Google, I am now considering building that new service under subdomains for product reason, and for the sake of clarity. 1- Would my subdomains inherit the authority of my main domain?
2- Do I have to keep the language folders with the subdomain structure?
e.g.:
new-service.domain.com/en
nouveau-service.domain.com/fr
nuovo-servizio.domain.com/it OR
new-service.domain.com
nouveau-service.domain.com
nuovo-servizio.domain.com Looking forward to reading you!0 -
If my products aren't showing in rich snippets, is there still value in adding product schema?
I'm adding category pages for an online auction site and trying to determine if its worth marking up the products listed on the page. All of the individual product pages have product schema, but I have never seen them show up in rich snippets likely due to the absence of the price element and the unique nature of the items. Is there still value in adding the product schema even if the items won't show in rich snippets? Also, is it possible the product schema will help optimize for commerce related keywords such as [artist name] + for sale?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Haleyb350 -
SEO Impact & Google Impact On Removing Product From Category Page for Ecommerce Site
Hello Experts, For my Ecommerce site previously I was showing products at category pages i.e. first all subcategories name after that list all products of all subcateogries. That also approx per category 500 products via load more feature. My query is now I am planning to show products only at Product Listing Page and not on Category pages so what will be SEO impact and how google will treat this? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Johny123450 -
Merging B2B site with B2C site
Hi, A mobile phone accessory client of ours has a retail site (B2C) and a trade site (B2B). The retail site does pretty well and ranks highly for a number of terms. The trade site doesn't really rank for anything as they don't optimise it. They would like to merge the two sites and allow trade customers to log-in and purchase goods in bulk for their business. If they were to merge the trade site into the already successful consumer site, what would be the best way of doing this and what, if any, implications would it have on the organic visibility of the B2C site? Would it be possible to target retail and trade customers on one website? Cheers, Lewis
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
With the New Panda update supposedly only weeks away, is it wise to No Index my products I have not had time to rewrite the product descriptions for ?
Hi Mozzers, I read on SEJ yesterday than apparently the Panda update was due in the 2 - 4 weeks. I still have a large of my products which I have not got around to rewriting unique product descriptions for. I know these product descriptions are duplicated on other affiliate sites so do it think it in light of the panda update coming , would it wise to put a NO INDEX Meta tag on these product pages until I get around to rewriting the descriptions. That way, I may not hit my Panda and it will buy me a bit more time. Just an idea , but thought I'd run it by. thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Merging 11 community sites into 1 regional site
I am merging 11 real estate community sites into 1 regional site and don't really know what type of redirect should I use for the homepage?, for instance: www.homepage.com redirect to www.regionalsite.com/community-page Should I 301 this redirect? If yes, how could I 301 redirect a homepage to an internal page in my new site? Cheers 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mbulox0 -
Product discontinued
Hi there, We have ranking top 3 for a competitive keyword, however the product linked to that keyword has just been discontinued, normally if we have alternatives to this product I would keep this page live and direct users to those alternatives products. What is best practice here? keeping the page live and telling users that this product has been discontinued and offering a helpline number? or just removing the page all together? (404) Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul780