SEO value in baclklink from blog.domain VS domain

[knielsen]

Will a back-link from "domain.com/abc" and "blog.domain.com/abc" have same value from an SEO perspective? Assume same article written on both sites. 
I have been told the bots look at the domain value and the only links from blogs that have less value are in case of comments. As long as the "blog.domain/abc" page includes a full article and not a blog comment then it counts fully for SEO. Is this correct?

[ThompsonPaul]

You've got the basics, Kristian.

If a page is on a strong domain, it will inherit some of that domain authority to the page. So if two pages are equal, but one is on a stronger domain (or stronger subdomain) the one on the stronger domain will likely rank higher and have more "juice" to send when it links out to other pages.

There are many examples of blog subdomains that are actually stronger than their parent domains because that's where the site owner is investing most of their attention and effort.

So... bottom line is... just because pages are on a blog subdomain doesn't mean they are necessarily worth less just because they're on a subdomain. Each has to be assessed individually for value, just like with the primary domains.

Consider this: blogging sites like Typepad and WordPress.com all have their users' site on subdomains, yet huge numbers of those subdomain-based blogs rank really well and are very high authority.

So assess a blog page on a subdomain as you would any other page. If it's related to your niche and a connection makes sense form a user's perspective, it's a reasonable target from which to earn a link.

Hope that helps;

Paul

[knielsen]

thank you, Paul. Good answer. Let me make sure I understand correctly: if I get a backlink from "blog.domain/abc" or from "domain.com/abc" that would have exactly same impact and link juice assuming the page "abc" in both cases have same page authority (let us just say it is a brand new page with PA 1) - is that correctly understood?

When I go to OpenSiteExplorer and enters "blog.domain.com" or simply "domain.com" - in both cases the domain authority is the same,  though I thought it would normally be different since domain authority will refer to the sub-domain "blog".

If you can share a few thoughts that would be appreciated

[ThompsonPaul]

There's nothing intrinsic about a blog that would cause links from it to have any less value than from a "regular" web page, Kristian. In fact, there's no way for a search engine to devalue a "blog" page because there's no definition of such a thing.

However... in the example you gave above, the blog would be considered a completely separate site from the primary domain site. This means that it is quite possible the blog site doesn't have as much domain authority as the primary domain, so links from it also wouldn't provide as much "juice." (Depends entirely on the specific situation and the difference between blog (subdomain) & main domain authority must be assessed on a case by case basis)

So it's not that the blog's links might carry less weight because it's a blog, but because it's pretty much a standalone site and must earn its own authority separate from the main site . The same is true for any subdomain-based sites, not just blogs.

Make sense?

Paul