Host a wordpress blog as a folder or external site?

[Bio-RadAbs]

I've been speaking to our developers as I want to introduce a blog. My intention is to host the blog as part of our existing site, so the url becomes

www.example.com/blog

I have a personal wordpress blog and I love it, the amount of plugins, themes and ease of use makes it a fantastic platform.

I spoke to my developers and requested if they could install Wordpress within a folder of our existing website. This gives me control to do plugins, custom themes etc. Straight forward I thought, but I didn't get a straight forward reply. They went on that it would require two linux php servers, a load balancer between them, and set up and configuration would take 5 days.

Their day rates are high, so 5 days is a lot of money.

This got me thinking, what if I hosted it externally and linked from our website, so the blog URL would be

www.myblog.com

This gives me the power to have a wordpress blog for cheap and use all the fantasic plugins to optimise the site (Yoast, Schema plugins etc).

I know for SEO, it's better to host it as part of your existing site, the ranking juice remains in your area and it further helps strengthen the site. But then i'm thinking, if the wordpress stand alone blog works out, it will end up being a great external linker, further boosting my existing site's presense.

Have any of you faced any similar problems? Thoughts?

[Matt-Williamson]

No problem Cyto - there is a lot to consider with this project.

I agree Chris, that is why I would only place a followed link on the homepage of the blog acknowledging the association. If you were to link on the other pages then I would tend to no follow them as you don't want hundreds of links from one of your sites to the other - I have done this successfully previously and this is clear that you are not trying to manipulate rankings. That is why having a blog that is integrated on your own site has the greater potential in terms of gaining links as mentioned, but there are the other factors to take into consideration too..

[tdawson09]

Another point I might add. Make sure that you post regularly on your blog, whether your blog is internally or externally. I recently tested this and found if I post at least once per week on a regular basis, within seconds my post is immediately indexed and searchable. This is, of course, that you have an active sitemap that pings the search engines when a change is made to your site. There are several good wordpress sitemap plugins that do this for you.

For longer tail titles, they are usually on the first page immediately and in the top 3 positions.

[ChrisHolgate]

Just be careful that Google doesn't pick up the large number of follow links from your blog site to your main site as being manipulative.  The last thing you want to do is pick up an unnatural links warning if / when the Google algorithm takes a dislike to hundreds of links pointing from a blog site that you own to another site that you own.

[Bio-RadAbs]

Thanks Matt,

You raised a good point I forgot, which is the backlinks. If I host this externally and it proves to be a hit, then I could start to get some highly valued backlinks. Is it worth getting these for my site, rather than the blog..hmm, thinks to ponder.

Your point about my audience is also a valid one. It's something I need to think, whether our customers are more likely to read and comment if our company is hosting the blog

Great food for thought and really helpful

[Matt-Williamson]

Obviously as you say making it part of your existing site would be ideal helping to further strengthen your sites authority with the links that you pick up. However setting your blog up as a standalone site could still work well and help drive traffic to your site. You may even find that you can encourage more guest posters if your site is standalone helping to build interaction and setting your self up as an authority/influencer in the niche. Linking between the two shouldn't be a problem as I have done the same with previous sites in the past with success as it was a natural think to link between the two.

So the long and short is that you could make this tactic work for you, you just have to weigh up whether the extra spend adding it to your site would be worth the potential links and added authority your site is likely to gain or not? Obviously as a separate site that links to your existing one you are only getting one linking root domain, whereas there is the potential to pick up numerous to your existing site if the blog is part of it and if you do the blog well and market it...

Also think whether it would work better to be standalone or part of your site from your current audiences perspective? Are more people likely to read and comment if it was seen and branded as a separate entity or part of your existing setup?