Blog on Subdomain vs. Subdirectory - Best Practices
-
Hi,
I have recently been told that it no longer impacts authority or rankings if a blog is set up on a subdomain (blog.domain.com) rather than a subdirectory (/blog). However, I am reluctant to do so because I remember learning how blog subdomains did not adhere to SEO best practices.
Would anyone be able to shed some light on the latest SEO best practices regarding this topic?
Many thanks,
Erin
-
Can Moz weigh in on this please? There is a lot of really good discussion on this particular topic across multiple threads but no clear direction. What does Moz recommend and why? The why is important and here's why.
If I have a client with an established blog that uses the blog.domain versus domain/blog structure, should I be recommending they migrate to a different structure?
-
Thanks Greg,
Super helpful video.
I have a Blogger blog and it is much harder to host it on a subdirectory and extremely easy to host it on a Subdomain. That video was extremely helpful in making a decision as to which one to use. It just saved me lots of hours of toil and pulling my hair out getting a subdirectory set up and configured, when from the horses mouth, it looks like a subdomain is just fine.
-
An interesting discussing. This is something I have been looking into recently for a blog of mine.
Thanks
-
Interesting point. Thanks for sharing this video!
-
Does the advice still hold true given this video?
-
Thanks everyone for your responses!
-
Hi Erin,
Sub directories are the preferred method. This has been asked many times on SEOmoz so I'll post a few links so you can have a look at some of the responses and exactly why they are preferred:
http://www.seomoz.org/q/blog-vs-blog
http://www.seomoz.org/q/best-place-for-a-blog-blog-mydomain-com-or-mydomain-com-blog
http://www.seomoz.org/q/subdomains-vs-subfolders
Hope that helps!
Brad
-
Well there is a very old debate and many SEO will recommend you using sub directory instead of sub domain.
Reasons why you should use Sub directory instead of sub-domain:
- Search engine still counts sub domain as another website so if the blog is in sub directory it will be considered as the part of the website
- Your over all SEO efforts will impact on sub directory which is not the case in terms of sub domain.
- Its way easier to rank for long tail keywords with sub directory instead of sub domain.
If SEO is not a problem for you are you are more interested in branding then i think subdomain goes well as its easier to remember and write directly in the URL bar.
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
-
Best practices for publishing sponsored content
Hello, Our website hosts sponsored content from different brands. Should we be listing the sponsor either on the frontend and/or through markup? - Would either way have any sort of an impact? The content itself is already clearly marked as 'sponsored content' but we were more interested in listing the specific sponsor. Also, we’re assuming the outbound links would need to be marked rel="sponsored" but are there any other best practices we should be implementing? Any insight would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | Ben-R
Thank you in advance.
Best,0 -
How to handle outdated, unoptimized blog posts receiving little or zero traffic?
I'm doing some overdue spring cleaning on our WP blog. Some big visual updates are in the works, but currently I'm working on pruning and updating some poopy and outdated content. Many of the older posts weren't written with SEO in mind and were posted to the blog merely as an extension of our monthly enewsletter. Here's an example: http://pq.systems/2FkQyVG This post needs a lot of work to meet our new standards. The content is thin, readability is weak, kw targetting is non-existant, the visuals suck, zero links, and the charting software mentioned has since been replaced with another solution that we are currently promoting. There are quite a few other posts with similar issues... Any thoughts on the best way to handle these posts? From poking around similar Q&A threads, it seems my options are: Create new updated post, remove old post, 301 redirect from old to new Create new updated post, add blurb & link pointing to new post at the top of old post Edit/update old post, add "This post was updated....etc" blurb to top of old post Any other options or opinions on which solution I should go with would be much appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | SamKlep0 -
Listing all services on one page vs separate pages per service
My company offers several generalized categories with more specific services underneath each category. Currently the way it's structured is if you click "Voice" you get a full description of each voice service we offer. I have a feeling this is shooting us in the foot. Would it be better to have a general overview of the services we offer on the "Voice" page that then links to the specified service? The blurb about the service on the overview page would be unique, not taken from the actual specific service's page.
On-Page Optimization | | AMATechTel0 -
Worth redirecting old blog posts into pages?
I'm working on a site that has some blog posts from 2011 - 2013 ranking on the first page for relevant terms. I'm going through and updating some of the content, internal links, etc., and wanted to know if it's worth redirecting some of these blog posts into new pages (in WordPress). Right now, the blog post URLs are long - exampleURL.com/2011/3/9/blog-post-title/ and the dates show up in the SERPs. I'd like to have the date removed so that the content doesn't look outdated, and I'd also like to have cleaner URLs. In your opinion, is it worth creating new pages and redirecting the old blog posts, or is the benefit of doing this not worth the effort? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | dchristensen30 -
Duplicate content issue, across site domains (blogging)
Hi all, I've just come to learn that a client has been cross-posting their blog posts to other blogs (on higher quality domains, in some cases). For example - this is the same post on 3 different blogs. http://thebioethicsprogram.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/how-an-irb-could-have-legitimately-approved-the-facebook-experiment-and-why-that-may-be-a-good-thing/
On-Page Optimization | | ketanmv
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2014/06/29/how-an-irb-could-have-legitimately-approved-the-facebook-experiment-and-why-that-may-be-a-good-thing/
http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2014/06/how-an-irb-could-have-legitimately-approved-the-facebook-experimentand-why-that-may-be-a-good-thing.html
And, sometimes a 4th time, on an NPR website. I'm assuming this is doing no one any favors and Harvard or NPR is going to earn the rank most every time. I'm going to encourage them to publish only fresh content on their real blog, would you agree? Can this actually harm the ranking of their blog and website - should we delete the old entries when migrating the blog? They are going to move their Wordpress Blog to hosting on their real domain soon:
http://www.bioethics.uniongraduatecollege.edu/news/ The current set up is not adding any value to their domain. Thank you for any advice! Ketan0 -
Image naming best practices?
While I have found many good sources of information for naming images for SEO purposes, I'm having trouble finding an up-to-date, exhaustive and authoritative source for image names, alt tags, etc. For instance... Max characters for image name? Max hyphens? How descriptive should you be? "ice-cream-flavors-icon_._jpg" or "ice-cream-flavors.jpg" or simply "ice-cream.jpg" How similar should the image name, alt text and page title be? At what point are you overusing a keyword? Rules to follow? So much more, but you get the idea! Anyone have a good reference or an answer to all things related to images and SEO? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | OSD0 -
URL best practices, use folders or not ?
Hi I have a question about URLs. Client have all URL written after domain and have only one / slash in all URLs. Is this best practice or i need to use categories,folders? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | 77Agency0 -
Best way to optimize site for Google Maps?
I am working with a site right now and they are ranked #1
On-Page Optimization | | WhiteHat12
for many keyword phrases based on their location and service. Their service is an
Insurance agency, so they rank #1 for many keywords like “Miami Insurance” or “South
Florida Insurance Agency” (their not actually ranked for Miami
just giving an example). I also include their address on every page of the site
(maybe that better helps Google maps?). Problem I am having is when searched
just the keyword phrase they rank number 1 but when searching say “insurance”
while being logged in to the area they rank for they do not come up. I hear that
there might be specific ways to optimize for this. What I would like to know is
what would I have to do to optimize for Google maps and what’s everything I possibly
can do. I am good with search engine optimization but have never really dabbled
much with Google Maps, I always thought they just ranked you based on your
address.0