Blogs: Hosted vs. Off-Site

[BMGSEO]

What is the latest opinion on whether to have a blog hosting on your primary domain or on an outside domain (either Wordpress or just another URL).

In the past we have done the former and it's been a great source of fresh content and organic traffic. Wonder if there is good argument now for not having it on the domain. With this new site we're working on it logistically would be more challenging given their tech resources, plus they already have thousands of pages.

[RyanKent]

The challenge is we are speaking in general terms. It would help if you shared a lot more specifics.

Generally speaking, if the blog content was directly related to my domain, I would want the blog to be on the main domain. If I had corvettes.com and I wanted to add a blog discussing corvettes, I would choose something like corvettes.com/blog.

If I had corvettes.com and I wanted to add a blog discussing cars in general, I may wish to separate the blog from my core site by using a subdomain. There will certainly be some relevant opportunities between the blog and the main site.

If I wanted to create a blog to discuss unrelated matters, then I would pursue a different url altogether.

[BMGSEO]

Great inputs. Turns out this client has some roadblocks with load balance systems, so it won't be easily feasible to have site.com/blog

Options are blog.site.com  or a completely different domain. Since inbound links won't be worth much to the primary domain (if the blog is on a sub) I'm pondering having on an external domain and branded differently. Any more thoughts?

[MBayes]

Just a additional thought. We use both, for different topics.  Our on domain Blog will focus on one theme.  and we can wonder around a bit on the word press hosted blog.

[BlastAM]

It really depends on the content of your blog.  I have seen a few blogs from various companies that we have worked with that have blogs that have a lot of content that is not related the rest of their site. Because the content is not related we have seen how the blog is bringing in the wrong kind of traffic when it starts to rank for keywords that are unrelated to the main site. Also, all of this unrelated content could hurt the site by causing the search engines to miscategorize the main purpose of the site.

A added bonus of having an external blog is that you can create quality external links to your site from your blog.

All that being said, generally I suggest that companies have their site under their own domain like www.mysite.com/blog

[RyanKent]

For an individual who does not have a website and is a casual blogger, then using an established domain offers the advantage of a stronger domain authority. In any other case, I prefer using your primary domain.

You want to control your traffic. There are a few nightmare stories where the blog host, such as blogger, closed the URL of a user. In each case the user lost years of value they built up. This reason alone would lead me to always using my primary domain.

Additionally, a key reason for providing a blog is to generate site traffic. If you offer high quality content in your blog, then you want visitors linking to your site, and not wordpress.

[PerchDigital]

I would suggest that it would be beneficial to have the blog on your own domain unless there is a very valid reason not to. By bringing the blog under your own roof, you're adding fresh content regularly and should the content be linked to or tweeted/ shared, you're domain will get the love.