Subdomain, subfolder or separate domains?
-
Hi Mozzers,
We're in the process of re-developing and redesigning several of our websites, and moving them all onto the same content management system. At the moment, although the websites are all under the same brand and roughly the same designs, because of various reasons they all either live on a separate domain to the main website, or are on a subdomain. Here's a list of what we have (and what we're consolidating):
- Main site - http://www.frenchentree.com/
- Property database - http://france-property.frenchentree.com/ (subdomain)
- Forum - http://www.france-forum-frenchentree.com/ (separate domain)
- Classified ads - http://www.france-classified-ads-frenchentree.com/ (separate domain)
My question to you lovely people is: should we take this opportunity through the redevelopment of the CMS to put everything into subfolders of the main domain? Keep things as they are? Put each section onto a subdomain? What's best from an SEO perspective?
For information - the property database was put onto a subdomain as this is what we were advised to do by the developers of the system. We're starting to question this decision though, as we very rarely see subdomains appear in SERPs for any remotely competitive search terms. Our SEO for the property database is fairly non-existent, and only ever really appears in SERPs for brand related keywords.
For further info - the forum and classifieds were under a separate brand name previously, so keeping them on separate domains felt correct at that time. However, with the redevelopment of our sites, it seems to make more sense to either put them on subdomains or subfolders of the main site. Our SEO for the forum is pretty strong, though has dwindled in the last year or so.
Any help/advice would be very much appreciated.
Thanks
Matt
-
Hi Rubix (and everyone else!)
I actually posted a question of my own that is similar, and another member Vadim Mialik referred me to this video by Matt Cutts (Google) on subdomains vs. subdirectories-- in a nutshell, Matt says that there is really very little difference, and it is up to what you prefer.
What do you guys think?
P.S. Would be keen to know how you got on with your implementation
Cheers,
Carlo -
Thanks for the responses all.
I've always had the suspicions that subfolders are the way to go, and will incorporate this into our development.
Thanks
Matt
-
yes, one website with subfolders is definitely best.
-
I had this issue so many times with different clients in the past and I still continue to come cross with the same issue. It's a challenge to deal with bunch of domains with no quality website or SEO, especially since the first penguin update.
Here is what I do and what i recommend,
1- Subdomain: I don't recommend subdomains for SEO purposes at all as they are considered as a new domain and if they are related to main domain there is no reason why they shouldn't be created as a subpages. ( To be honest, i don't even like typing subdomains as I have to put dot in the middle of the domain, I already have to put one before .com I don't want to use another one). As subdomains are treated as a new domain, you will have to do all marketing activities twice so you are actually duplicating the work.
2- Forum: I would recommend to have forum as a subdomain as well but In my previous tasks we actually had a lot of technical issues with forum integration. Things can go wrong easily on forums and it does effect the main domain, therefore i would say have the domain as a subpages as long as they don't create technical issues. If they do, then it could be worthwhile to consider a new domain.
3- Classify Ads: I am not quite sure why you would have classify adds on a separate domain. Your specific domain is also a bit long to type. I would recommend subpages for this as it gives you chance to increase the number of pages on your main domain and i think it'd make user journey easier. Visitors wouldn't have to jump from one domain to another, everything will be under one roof.
In terms of separate domains, I use separate domains, only keyword related domain, for PPC purposes as i pay less click rate on some of the keywords. Does it save me a lot money? No, but the domains were already bought by my clients and at least I manage to save some money rather than keeping them for nothing. Other than that, as long as the domains don't have a new product, service or something different that worth to get a new domain, i don't recommend buying separate domains.
I agree with Dan, I strongly recommend to have one good website and do all you marketing activities on one of them.
I hope that helps.
-
Hi Matt
My personal opinion is to consolidate everything on the one domain using subfolders (as you suggest) and set up domain forwarding from the old domains to the new subfolders which are replacing those domains. Interesting to hear what others think too though ?
All Best
Dan
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
-
Page Authority inherited by domain
Hi there, We (blog.fust.ch) created our blog at the same time as (blog.interdiscount.ch). We're both blogs of big brands in switzerland. But there is one big different. The interdiscount blog ranks much better than we do. But they not even optimize the blog for standard SEO points. Now i found the reason i guess. They get the complete page authority of the brand interdiscount.ch inherited. How is that possible, because we don't..? (Screens in attachment) Best regards Sandro K7zxz ndODO
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sandro_Haag0 -
To subdomain or to subfolder, that is the question.
Hi All, So I have a client that has two restaurants that they are wanting two sites for. Right now they have one site for their two locations that ranks pretty well for some bigger keywords for their style of food. With them wanting two sites, i'm struggling on whether we should just build them all within one site and just use separate folders on that site restaurant.com/location1 & restaurant.com/location2 with a landing page sending you to each, or if we should split it into subdomains. The content will be roughly the same, the menus are identical, i think each branch is just owned by a different family member so they want their own site. I keep leaning towards building it all into one site but i'm not sure. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | insitemoz10 -
Ranking Above sub-domains
So I work for a company that has a very successful affiliate that operates under a third level domain name such as "region.company.com". Their SEO practices are very good and they rank highly in keyword searches. However "company.com" does not even though it is not a subdomain. Even after optimizing the company.com's pages etc, the regional sub domain ranks much higher for keywords and the main company fails to rank at all. Is Google discounting the main company's page? Is it a matter of trust or time? or is it something else? How can I get Google to prioritize the main company website rather than a lower level domain affiliate?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Resolute0 -
SEO: Subdomain vs folders
Hello, here's our situation:We have an ecommerce website, say www.example.com. For support, we use zendesk which offers a great platform that makes publishing FAQ and various resource articles very easy. We're torn between publishing these articles on our actual website, or publishing them via Zendesk. If we publish them on our website, the url would be something like:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yacpro13
www.example.com/articles/title_article.html On the other hand, if we publish them via zendesk, the url would look like:
support.example.com/articles/title_of_article We would like to publish them via Zendesk, however, we do no want to miss out on any SEO benefit, however marginal it may be. Doing it this way, the domain would have all of the ecommerce pages (product and category pages), and the subdomain would have ALL other types of pages (help articles and also policies, such as return policies, shipping info, etc etc). I know a long time ago, folders were preferred over subdomains for SEO, but things change all the time.Do you think setting up all the ecommerce pages on the domain, and all content pages on the subdomain, would be a lesser solution? Thanks.0 -
Moving categories to new domain
Hello Mozzers , I'm trying to find best possible solution for this situation. So there is a website (e-commerce) and since it's grew up too much we are looking to move several categories on different domain. The reason for this is that we introduce completely different product group (example: we have products that are related to watches and everything related to watch industry but now we introduce leather products: wallets, bags etc). Do you think it is worth it to move new categories to new domain in order to better target this product group? In case of positive answer which is the best way to do it - 301 redirect or leave the products on this site and build a new site with slightly different product description and names? Regards, Nenad
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Uniline0 -
Google is mixing subdomains. What can we do?
Hi! I'm experiencing something that's kind of strange for me. I have my main domain let's say: www.domain.com. Then I have my mobile version in a subdomain: mobile.domain.com and I also have a german version of the website de.domain.com. When I Google my domain I have the main result linking to: www.domain.com but then Google mixes all the domains in the sites links. For example a Sing in may be linking mobile.domain.com, a How it works link may be pointing to de.domain.com, etc What's the solution? I think this is hurting a lot my position cause google sees that all are the same domain when clearly is not. thanks!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fabrizzio0 -
Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain
I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
Pros and Cons of new subdomain and redirecting old subdomain?
Hi guys, I am thinking about redirecting the ranking subdoman to a new subdomain which has my main keyword within it. I am trying to outrank an exact match competitor and don't seem to be able to do so. For example: page.example.com would be my existing ranking URL which is very powerful, and I am thinking about redirecting this to a new URL being keywordpage.example.com What are your thoughts on do this? Thanks B
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HaymarketMediaGroupLtd0