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
-
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 -
Use Nonindex or Canonical on product tags of a e-commerce site
I run a e-commerce site and we have many product tags. These product tags come up as "Duplicate Page Content" when Moz does it's crawl. I was wondering if I should use Nonindex or Canonical? The tags all go to the same product when used so I figure I would just nonindex them but was wondering what's the best for SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EmmettButler1 -
Should I just redirect all my sites to my main site.
Hi, Over the last few years I have built many sites and own a lot of domain names. Some have high page rank some have high domain authority and some have many back links. I'm finding it very difficult to keep up with all the links and being able to provide quality content for everything. Should I just redirect everything to my one site that make the most money as all sites are for the same industry, but in different categories of that industry. So I could 301 redirect all the sites to the relevant page on my money site. Would it be a problem is 1000's if not 10,000's of links all of a sudden pointed in to one site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cibble030 -
Manual action penalty revoked, rankings still low, if we create a new site can we use the old content?
Scenario:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peteboyd
A website that we manage was hit with a manual action penalty for unnatural incoming links (site-wide). The penalty was revoked in early March and we're still not seeing any of our main keywords rank high in Google (we are found on page 10 and beyond). Our traffic metrics from March 2014 (after the penalty was revoked) - July 2014 compared to November 2013 - March 2014 was very similar. Question: Since the website was hit with a manual action penalty for unnatural links, is the content affected as well? If we were to take the current website and move it to a new domain name (without 301 redirecting the old pages), would Google see it as a brand new website? We think it would be best to use brand new content but the financial costs associated are a large factor in the decision. It would be preferred to reuse the old content but has it already been tarnished?0 -
Focusing on Multiple Niches for one site: good or bad?
Is it wise to focus on multiple niches for one site, rather than zoning in one or two different niches? On one hand, you can target many more topics and go after tons of keywords, but on the other hand doesn't google get confused of what your site is really about? Won't google just focus on one of the niches that you provide more than all others? Any input would be great!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Migrating a site from a standalone site to a subdivision of large .gov.uk site
The scenario We’ve been asked by a client, a Non-Government Organisation who are being absorbed by a larger government ministry, for help with the SEO of their site. They will be going from a reasonably large standalone site to a small sub-directory on a high authority government site and they want some input on how best to maintain their rankings. They will be going from the Number 1 ranked site in their niche (current site domainRank 59) to being a sub directory on a domainRank 100 site). The current site will remain, but as a members only resource, behind a paywall. I’ve been checking to see the impact that it had on a related site, but that one has put a catch all 302 redirect on it’s pages so is losing the benefit of a it’s historical authority. My thoughts Robust 301 redirect set up to pass as much benefit as possible to the new pages. Focus on rewriting content to promote most effective keywords – would suggest testing of titles, meta descriptions etc but not sure how often they will be able to edit the new site. ‘We have moved’ messaging going out to webmasters of existing linking sites to try to encourage as much revision of linking as possible. Development of link-bait to try and get the new pages seen. Am I going about this the right way? Thanks in advance. Phil
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | smrs-digital0 -
Is it possible to Spoof Analytics to give false Unique Visitor Data for Site A to Site B
Hi, We are working as a middle man between our client (website A) and another website (website B) where, website B is going to host a section around websites A products etc. The deal is that Website A (our client) will pay Website B based on the number of unique visitors they send them. As the middle man we are in charge of monitoring the number of Unique visitors sent though and are going to do this by monitoring Website A's analytics account and checking the number of Unique visitors sent. The deal is worth quite a lot of money, and as the middle man we are responsible for making sure that no funny business goes on (IE false visitors etc). So to make sure we have things covered - What I would like to know is 1/. Is it actually possible to fool analytics into reporting falsely high unique visitors from Webpage A to Site B (And if so how could they do it). 2/. What could we do to spot any potential abuse (IE is there an easy way to spot that these are spoofed visitors). Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James770 -
Has my site been penalized?
Our site was listed on the first page for the phrase Active SEO on Google.co.uk. We suddenly find ourselves on page 4 overnight and we're not sure what's going on. We have not undertaken an Black hat techniques however the site is fairly new. Anyone have any ideas as to what is going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MassivePrime0