For A Corporation With 3 Distinct Business Divisions, Is It Better To Go With 1 Domain & 3 Sub-Domains, 1 Domain & 3 Folders, or 3 Domains for SEO Purposes?
-
Hi, I am working on a project right now for an existing client, we have one domain up and running well, they want to create an 'umbrella' site to cover three current business divisions and roll everything up under that main site, including the existing site on a totally different domain (would migrate over and 301 redirect from current domain). From what I've researched, I am inclined towards one main domain with three sub-domains due to the amount of content for each business division being significantly different enough that it seems to deserve separation from each other.
However, in terms of SEO and maintaining consistent domain authority, would anyone recommend it be better to structure this as just folders/categories falling under the main domain instead of separate sub-domains for each division, and focus keyword targeting on pages tailored to that end within the main domain structure rather than spreading out link-juice to different sub-domains? Thanks!
-
Marcus -
Hi, thanks for the helpful considerations, I certainly agree it seems to be much simpler to keep it all as one and ensure a clean hierarchy with breadcrumbs for nav and so on. Perhaps that may yet be the best way to go, I will definitely keep your points in consideration as I discuss with the client!
- Dan
-
Hey Daniel
I am not sure there is ever a single right or wrong answer in these situations as there are just so many moving parts.
I tend to lean towards a single site as, well, it's a single site so just one site to maintain and focus on. But, we have to consider the differences in the business areas and if one area is airplanes and the other is icecream then... maybe the differences are just too pronounced.
I think a helpful way to decide is to consider the likely users and audience for the site(s).
- Who is the site for? What do our typical users look like?
- Do people understand that A is the parent company of X, Y & Z
- Is it going to work for users best as one site or three or does it not really matter
- Who is going to maintain the site and add content?
- Are there any business reasons to have separate sites?
From a pure SEO perspective, three sites would likely give you more scope with each site being truly focused on it's core area, but that comes with the burden of much more work.
With a single site everything is simplified and as long as we ensure we have a very sensible structure and a good clean hierarchy then we should be able to make it easy for a user to navigate and understand where they are within the site and for Google to understand the three different and distinct areas.
I am thinking bread crumbs, URLs, consistent page titles etc.
URL: www.example.com/airplanes/
Breadcrumb: Home > Airplanes
Page Title: Airplanes - Example.comURL: www.example.com/icecream/
Breadcrumb: Home > Icecream
Page Title: Ice Cream - Example.comURL: www.example.com/underpants/
Breadcrumb: Home > Underpants
Page Title: Underpants - Example.comIt's all too easy to overcomplicate things and certainly three or even four sites is way more complicated than one. Just remember your users, consider how they may arrive at the site and make sure the structure, breadcrumbs, page names, page titles and everything else all create a consistent experience.
Likewise, ensure that the homepage makes it very easy for people to get to where they need to be (think signposts).
Who knows as well, there may be opportunity to cross sell in having the three businesses on one site and certainly additional marketing like email marketing, analytics, PPC etc all creates extra work to manage effectively on several sites compared to a single site.
If this was me I would be gunning for a single site but with a serious consideration of the pros, cons and any problems or opportunities that may make one or three a better choice.
So, not an answer as such, but maybe something to get you thinking along the right lines.
Hope it helps!
Marcus
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
-
Blogspot blog is subdomain, but domain is changing - How will this affect backlinks?
Hi Moz community, I appreciate the title is confusing, so let me explain. We use blogspot to host our blog. It's set up as a subdomain of our website. Let's call it: lovelyblog.lovelytraining.com Our website, in this example, is **lovelytraining.com ** We're migrating our website to a new domain: lovely.training We'll be redirecting everything on the primary website, so our link profile won't be lost. However, as the blog is hosted on blogspot, we'll lose links pointed to the blog. The blog would remain lovelyblog.lovelytraining.com - but our website would now be lovely.training The question is, has anyone migrated/redirected a blogspot blog in this way, to retain links? Secondly, is there another way we can tell Google that this is blog should be treated as a subdomain of our website? I'm sure I'm missing out something stupid, so don't go easy on me! Thanks all.
Web Design | | RobertChapman0 -
Community Discussion: UX & SEO – Your experience?
We've been looking at the relationship between SEO & UX a bit more closely lately on the blog. Our good pal Cyrus started the wheels turning with a tweet: https://twitter.com/CyrusShepard/status/748296076411625473 ...and that morphed into a Whiteboard Friday idea, which was filmed and posted here: https://moz.com/blog/ux-vs-seo-whiteboard-friday We shared the story of one site that enjoyed rapid growth and that subsequently battled with managing that UX/SEO relationship on Thursday. And it's hard, right? UX and SEO teams often operate independently of one another, and may make decisions that affect one another's work. Sometimes it's a "hindsight is 20/20" situation. Sometimes the answer is so radical and impactful that you may want to settle for a "safe" alternative. I'd imagine many of you have encountered some big issues with user experience and search optimization in your day-to-day over the years. What's the most difficult situation you've encountered with this? How did you resolve it? (I'd bet money on there being some really creative solutions out there :). Is there a particularly challenging situation you're struggling with now that you'd want to share & crowdsource ideas for?
Web Design | | FeliciaCrawford3 -
Does blogger.com stink for SEO purposes?
Three different SEO guys suggest moving my blog to another platform. " I think migrating to a more robust CMS platform like Drupal or Wordpress would be a wise decision." But, they never say why moving would benefit SEO. My blog is on a custom domain, has lots of original content and has decent organic traffic to begin with. I think I have other SEO issues to deal with before bothering with a new platform. Does blogger stink for SEO? Why?
Web Design | | Eric_haney0 -
Ecommerce Site - SEO
We have a Business Catalyst Site with the Same product Listed in 2 different catalogs. Each product page is the same page with different URLs you can see it here: http://www.yourpharmacy.co.nz/beauty/clarins-skincare/clarins-advanced-extra-firming-eye-contour-cream-20ml http://www.yourpharmacy.co.nz/clarins/clarins-advanced-extra-firming-eye-contour-cream-20ml Any suggestions welcome
Web Design | | OnlineAssetPartners0 -
Check list for Manual penalty – Before going for reconsideration
Hi there, Any one please help us, in cross checking our recovery work before submitting to reconsideration request. Quality Check list for a Website SEO audit check list Why am requesting means, our previous request was came with a negative result. Thanking you in advance
Web Design | | Shashidhar.SEO1 -
Transitioning to a dynamic home page. Impact on SEO?
Home page redesign advice, please. We're a growing college textbook publishing company; a unique one in that we publish everything under an open license. Our homepage www.flatworldknowledge.com has a solid page score (80), and since our product serves several different customers/audiences -- students, faculty, bookstores -- we're transitioning to a dynamic home page approach. Returning instructors will be served a personalized faculty page, returning students a student oriented page featuring the books they've most recently accessed, and first time/anon visitors will receive a more neutral welcome page until we know more about them. Pros, cons with this change to a dynamic homepage? What should we be thinking about/concerned about from an SEO perspective? How do you address title tags? Will this approach dilute page authority? Thanks all!
Web Design | | JasonBilog0 -
Why is this page removed from Google & Bing indices?
This page has been removed from indices at Bing and Google, and I can't figure out why. http://www.pingg.com/occasion/weddings This page used to be in those indices There are plenty of internal links to it The rest of the site is fine It's not blocked by meta robots, robots.txt or canonical URL There's nothing else to suggest that the page is being penalized
Web Design | | Ehren0 -
Should I Remove URL extentions for SEO?
We are having a developer design our website with Magento. I noticed the main pages such as About Us have no file extention in the URL. But the product pages have a .html file extention. I was once told to remove the file extentions. Are there benefits to removing the .html file extension and if so, is there a way we can do this using Magento?
Web Design | | hfranz0