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
-
Is managed wordpress hosting bad for seo?
hi, i would like to create my own website, but I am confused either to choose cpanel hosting or managed wordpress
Web Design | | alan-shultis0 -
Business Services via Index Page or Dedicated Pages?
We're in the process of building a new website for our Business (B2B Event Services) and we've hit a design snag. Our designer wants to combine all of our business services information (there are six service lines) into a single Index Page titled "Services". Beyond this creating a needlessly long page to scroll through, I'm worried this will negatively impact our ability to SEO for each service line, as we wouldn't have any intention of letting people visit the individual pages from within the site. Our current site features individual pages which, in my opinion, is how we should build our new site. That being said, I'm completely open to any ideas that will further enhance usability and searchability. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated!
Web Design | | SHWorldwide1 -
How is Single Page Application (SPA) bad for SEO
Hi guys. I am quite inspired of SPA technique. It's really amazing when all your interaction with the site is going on the fly and you don't see any page reloads. I've started implementing the site with this instruction and already found nice guys to make the design. The only downside of the using SPA which I can see **is the **SEO part. That's because the URL does not really change and different pages don't have their unique URL addresses.
Web Design | | Billy_gym
Actually they have, but it looks like: yoursite.com/#/products yoursite.com/#/prices yoursite.com/#/contact So all of them goes after # and being just anchors. For Google this mean all of these pages is just yoursite.com/ My question is what is really proven method to implement the URL structure in Single Page Application, so all the pages indexed by Google correctly (sorry I don't mention the other search engines because of market share). The other question, of course, is examples. It will be great to see real life site examples, better authority sites, which use SPA technique and well indexed by search engines.1 -
Infinite Scrolling & "Long Scrolling" same or different??
Can anyone please confirm for me the difference if any, between site design that incorporates Long Scrolling and Infinite Scroll? I was told (by an unnamed source) these were different designs and that "long scrolling" is better for SEO . However, in all my research I am unable to prove there is any difference between the two. I understand Infinite scroll may include Ajax, but does that mean Long Scrolling does not? If anyone has any references or can supply any further education here, I'd appreciate it! Thanks!
Web Design | | ACNINTERACTIVE0 -
Is anyone here managing or doing SEO for a site using GoECart?
We are preparing to update/migrate to a new ecommerce platform. We are in the process of choosing right now. One of the things we know we want is faceted navigation, but I am well aware of the problems this presents for SEO. Are any of you amazing people here using, managing or have experience with GoECart? I am interested to know your feedback, particularly from an SEO viewpoint. Thanks in advance! Dana
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
Website spread over two domains - The Good,The Bad and the Ugly ?
Hi, I am wondering if the way I have set up our website site is creating more harm than good ? All our SEO efforts and content is located @ www.sparrowmakeup.com.au however our portfolio is located at www.make-up-artists.com.au. Questions ? Will Analytic bounce rates effect my SERP, as most people click on the portfolio link in the first 5-15 sec of landing on our page ?? Is there a better way of setting it up ? the reason I set it up like this in the first place was because we wanted a different look/theme for the portfolio. (using WP) Is there any other issues that this setup might have in the SEO / SERP department ?? Is there any benefits and how can I maximize on them (silver lining) Your help and experience is greatly appreciated. Regards Ed
Web Design | | EdsonGroupMedia0 -
Sites went from page 1 to page 40 + in results
Hello all We are looking for any insight we can get as to why all (except 1) of our sites were effected very badly in the rankings by Google since the Panda updates. Several of our sites londonescape.com dublinescape.com and prague, paris, florence, delhi, dubai and a few others (all escape.com urls) have had major drop in their rankings. LondonEscape.net (now.com (changed after rank drop) ), was ranked between 4th & 6th but is now down around 400th and DelhiEscape.net and MunichEscape.com were both number 1 for several years for our main key words We also had two Stay sites number 1 , AmsterdamStay and NewYorkstay both .com ranked number 1 for years , NewYork has dropped to 10th place so far the Amsterdam site has not been effected. We are not really sure what we did wrong. MunichEscape and DelhiEcape should never have been page 1 sites ) just 5 pages and a click thru to main site WorldEscape) but we never did anything to make them number 1. London, NewYork and Amsterdam sites have had regular new content added, all is checked to make sure its original. **Since the rankings drop ** LondonEscape.com site We have redirected the.net to the .com url Added a mountain of new articles and content Redesigned the site / script Got a fair few links removed from sites, any with multiple links to us. A few I have not managed yet to get taken down. So far no result in increased rankings. We contacted Google but they informed us we have NOT had a manual ban imposed on us, we received NO mails from Google informing us we had done anything wrong. We were hoping it would be a 6 month ban but we are way past that now. Anyone any ideas ?
Web Design | | WorldEscape0 -
Effects of HTML layout on Arabic websites and SEO
Hi all, I was hoping someone may be able to help. We are putting together an Arabic website and due to reading right to left as opposed to left to right, the site HTML layout is mirrored compared to normal with everything flipped over. What we are wondering is, will this effect SEO and what are the SEO implications of this? Do the search engine bots automaticlaly know to read the content etc differently and understand that everything is purposely mirrored / the HTML is in a different location compared to a site in the UK / US etc? Any help on this would be most appreciated. Cheers!
Web Design | | marcelo-2753980