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.
Blog.mysite.com or mysite.com/blog?
-
Hi, I'm just curious what the majority think of what's the best way to start a blog on your website for SEO benefits. Is it better to have it under a sub domain or a directory? Or does it even matter?
-
From everything I've read, I agree that your safest bet is to go with the subfolder.
-
I agree with Tim and Adam and that said, sub-folders are better as a general rule of thumb for sure.
You might also want to refer to other similar questions here on SEOMOZ.
-
http://www.seomoz.org/q/blogs-are-best-when-hosted-on-domain-subdomain-or* http://www.seomoz.org/q/setting-up-a-company-blog-subdomain-or-new-url* http://www.seomoz.org/q/blog-vs-blog
and the post from Matt Cutts as well as the article from Rand that Adam mentioned.
-
-
I think Adam has hit the nail on the head. We recently moved our blog site from a subdomain to a subfolder and 301'd all the old URL’s with the intention that any entries that users find genuinely useful or interesting will be potentially linked to, thereby providing a benefit to the root domain.
As long as your blog is tightly related to your core business activity then I would go down the subfolder root although, in all honesty, I think subdomains potentially look a little more professional.
-
Hi Tim,
I generally prefer to go with the subfolder option (mysite.com/blog) rather than the subdomain (blog.mysite.com). The reason I prefer this option is because having the blog in a subfolder means that it will benefit from the value of the root domain. In other words, links that are obtained by the root domain will pass that value to the subfolders. However, a subdomain is treated as a separate site and therefore not much value is passed via the root.
Rand provides an excellent answer in a previous Q&A of a similar topic:
Hope that helps,
Adam.
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
-
Does DA/PA have any effect on rankings?
I have seen many people are concerned about increasing DA and PA of their websites. While I am very curious why do people focus on increasing DA and PA? Does DA and PA effect the rankings of the website? Because I have recently launched my website regarding men beard trimmer and it is ranking on 1st page but not on number 1 position. Will increasing DA/PA of the site help me in occupying 1st position?
On-Page Optimization | | RyanAmin0 -
Does blogging with a wysiwyg negatively affect SEO (vs. hand coding)?
Many bloggers use a wysiwyg editor to write posts. Are there any drawbacks to wysiwyg vs plain text? When I write blogs I prefer to hand code my text to be sure everything is optimized. My feeling is that wysiwyg leads to code bloat and generally fewer optimization opportunities. I have no real evidence. Is there any reason not to use the wysiwyg editor?
On-Page Optimization | | Jason-Rogers0 -
Recommended Schema for a Collection/Category page?
Hi There! Taking on a small project up updating and adding in Schema to a clients site; a previous developer half put in data vocabulary. In my planning I was wondering if their would be a best schema type for category page of products - or a collection of products? Any ideas and experience? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | paul-bold0 -
How to Handle duplicate pages/titles in Wordpress
The wordpress blog causes problems with page titles. If you go to the second page of blog posts it there's a different URL but with the same page title. for example: page 1: site/blog page 2: site/blog/page/2 Each page gets flagged for duplicate page titles. Thanks in advance for your thoughts,
On-Page Optimization | | heymarshall1 -
Content hidden behind a 'read all/more..' etc etc button
Hi Anyone know latest thinking re 'hidden content' such as body copy behind a 'read more' type button/link in light of John Muellers comments toward end of last year (that they discount hidden copy etc) & follow up posts on Search Engine Round Table & Moz etc etc ? Lots of people were testing it and finding such content was still being crawled & indexed so presumed not a big deal after all but if Google said they discount it surely we now want to reveal/unhide such body copy if it contains text important to the pages seo efforts. Do you think it could be the case that G is still crawling & indexing such content BUT any contribution that copy may have had to the pages seo efforts is now lost if hidden. So to get its contribution to SEO back one needs to reveal it, have fully displayed ? OR no need to worry and can keep such copy behind a 'read more' button/link ? All Best Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Alt text / internal linking
Hi everyone A question about best practice when linking from pictures on our homepage - hirespace.com We have an option of using divs with background images (nicer in terms of design) but it means that we can't use anchor text or alt text to show Google what these internal links are about. The other option is to use images which do not allow us as much flexibility in terms of CSS but would allow us to use alt text. There is also an opinion that we should have separate text links at the bottom of the homepage to get the anchor page in. What is best practice in this situation - is alt text worth sacrificing some CSS flexibility for? How important is anchor/alt text for internal linking? Thanks guys.
On-Page Optimization | | HireSpace0 -
WordPress and category/subcategory landing pages
Hey, Here's my situation. I'm building a WordPress blog for product reviews of a certain niche. Current category setup is 4 main categories with 4-8 subcategories each. Each subcategory has a unique description that will help it become a landing page for certain keywords, after which it lists the posts from that subcategory. The posts will always be assigned to a sub-category, never to a main category. My issue is what to do with the main categories. They're fairly general so they're not really targeting any keywords, and don't have any unique descriptions attached to them. I was thinking of choosing between three options on designing the main category pages: List the subcategories + normal posts loop that bring the latest posts from the subcategories (may create a lot of duplicate content since the subcategory pages are also listing their posts) List only the subcategories (+ maybe just the latest post from each subcategory) Don't link the main categories at all, instead only use them to create dropdowns for the subcategories So, what would you choose, and why?
On-Page Optimization | | mihaiaperghis0 -
How to optimize a wordpress blog
I’m helping a client optimize a word press blog, and I’m not that familiar with Wordpress. The site is www.athleticfoodie.com. At first I was treating it like a normal website, where the categories would be optimized like pages on a website. However, I now realize that categories don’t have any content on them, so I can’t really optimize anything other than the names. Are the following things the best way to handle on-page optimization for a blog? Optimizing the homepage & domain: Find ways to incorporate the most important keywords into the elements on the main frame of the site: Navigation menu, Widgets, Category names, Alt Images. Optimizing the categories: For the posts within the categories (i.e., photos), work to make sure the category keywords are worked into the post titles (but not too much to seem spammy) Optimizing specific posts. Work keywords into the text and images. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340