Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Subdomains vs Subfolders
-
I've had a good read on this one and just wondered whether the info on the below link is still valid 3 years on:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
My main site is a forum but I want to add further content in the form of a blog. It seems logical to me that domain.com/blog/ would make more sense than blog.domain.com as the the content and inbound links to the blog would also help the forum where it's on the same subdomain, however I just wanted to make sure that was still the case as I've also read that Google now see a subdomain and subfolder in the same way if set up correctly in webmaster tools and this solution would look neater if that was the case.
Thanks all.
-
Rand,
Do you still stick by this, or have you noticed a shift in the metrics given the update from Matt Cutts on this very subject.
Should I structure my site using subdomains or subdirectories? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk
-
I just mean the uniquely named portion of the subdomain, e.g. the "xyz" in xyz.domainname.com
-
Thanks for clearing that up Rand, I'll stick to the one subdomain.
-
What is subdomian extension? I cant find it in Wiki or Google. When would one use it?
-
All the testing, research and examples I've seen in the past few years (and even the past few months) strongly suggest that the same principles still hold true.
Subdomains SOMETIMES inherit and pass link/trust/quality/ranking metrics between one another
Subfolders ALWAYS inherit and pass link/trust/quality/ranking metrics across the same subdomain
Thus, having a single subdomain (even just domainname.tld with no subdomain extension) with all of your content is absolutely ideal from an SEO perspective. It's also more usable and brandable, too IMO.
-
These links are the one's that got me thinking.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4339166.htm
Also, I was under the impression that sub forums on one domain were viewed as different sites in the SERPs but try searching for 'bodybuilding'. You'll see www.bodybuilding.com at the top and a list of pages from that site and 2 further subdirectories are included (forum.bodybuilding.com and bodyspace.bodybuilding.com).
Although a personal preference only, I prefer subdomains and think forum.domain.com and blog.domain.com look much better than domain.com/forum and I would do it this way IF the rankings were unaffected.
-
I've read tens, possibly hundreds of articles on subdomains vs folders.
I still prefer the folder approach (it makes more sense to me) but I'd be interested in seeing the article you refer to that says Google now views SD the same as folders. Much appreciated!
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
-
slug Link redirect to subdomain?
Hi !
Link Building | | Leviiii
Im Levi new here and new in the world of SEO, please dont judge if my questions are silly. Back on the days when the site was built we thought it is a good ideea to have subdomains that together with the domain name represent our main keywords.
ex. https://stansted.tonorwich.uk, https://heathrow.tonorwich.uk, https://luton.tonorwich.uk, https://gatwick.tonorwich.uk. There is content on this subdomains, would it make any difference from SEO perspective if we create slugs that redirect to these subdomains? for example creating https://tonorwich.uk/taxi-minibus-vip-tesla-norwich-to-stansted that redirects to https://stansted.tonorwich.uk ? Or better create these slugs with slightly different content?
Any ideeas would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!0 -
Why are there less backlink domains in Moz vs. Semrush?
For our domain studyville.com, Semrush is reporting 46 linking domains, and Moz is reporting 7. Does anyone know where there is such a large discrepancy?
Link Building | | shelbythomas0 -
Creating a subdomain or subdirectory for each major city for our main website...
If our website is abc.com I am wanting to create a subdomain or subdirectory for each major city for SEO targeting purposes. But I want each domain to go to our see the same content from the main website abc.com. What's the best way to accomplish this? Duplicating our main page over and over sounds terrible , especially when trying to make changes down the road. Should we create an alias for each location? example.. abc.com/new-york, abc.com-chicago, etc...? If we go that route how does google acknowledge that? Would that mess up our SEO or help? Thanks!
Link Building | | michaelfisk0 -
Backlinks from subdomain, can it hurt ranking?
I just started doing an SEO audit and noticed I have 40,000 some odd back links from an OLD version of our site that has been moved to a subdomain. The back links are for articles that already exist on our main site. I don't think Google is picking it up as duplicate content because that site isn't being crawled anymore. Could this hurt us SEO wise? I plan on removing the site, but how long after it's been removed should those back links disappear?
Link Building | | MMAffiliate0 -
Root-Domain vs Subdomain Linkbuilding
Hello Mozzers! Couple of days ago I received a request to start optimizing a wordpress website, the domain itself has been around for around 10-12 years so it's it can be considered as one that has real history behind it. The page has been moved from HTML/FLASH to wordpress about 3 - 4 years ago and hasn't been any SEO maintenance on it. The site used to rank for first position with several keywords, but now understandably, it has greatly decreased. My main question would be, that when I've checked the root domain's and the subdomain's metrics with MOZ Open Site Explorer, the sub domain (with "www.") showed a PA 40 and 90 external links while the root domain (without "www.") only has 27 PA and 6 External links. I know that the 301 or server redirects only transfers about 90% of the link juice to the targeted URL but the difference between the 2 results seem way too big for me. What do you think? Is this normal?
Link Building | | adamdankhazi
During future link building is it more beneficial to target the root domain so the page won't lose that "10%" by redirecting the new link from sub-domain to root domain?
Is it possible to get more juice transferred? Thank you very much,
Adam0 -
Shortened url vs. anchor text
Are there any benefits to linking a shortened url vs. an anchor text when I am link building?Would linking via shortened link such as tinyurl cause problems with SERPS? Also, would it be more beneficial to short link to the homepage or landing page?
Link Building | | Modbargains0 -
Outgoing links - internal vs. external
I thought that the important factor in the value of a link was how many outing links a page has total. Some tools seems to tell me that the important data point is how many EXTERNAL links a page has. Which number should I be paying attention to when looking at pages I want to get linked from? (Yes, I know there are many other factors that are important)
Link Building | | EugeneF0 -
Do links from my own subdomain to my main domain carry any value?
I currently have a Wordpress blog set up on a subdomain i.e blog@ etc. I wanted to know whether the links from the blog to my main site carry any value.
Link Building | | Store210