Subdomain blog vs. subfolder blog in 2013
-
So I've read the posts here:
http://moz.com/community/q/subdomain-blog-vs-subfolder-blog-in-2013
and many others, Matt Cutts video, etc.
Does anyone have direct experience that its still best practice to use the sub folder? (hopefully a moz employee can chime in?)
I have a client looking to use hubspot. They are preaching with the Matt Cutts video. I'm in charge of SEO / marketing and am at odds with them now. I'd like to present the client with more info than "in my experience in the past I've seen subdirectories work."
Any help? Articles? etc?
-
I'm associated with a site that ranked fairly well. Earlier in the summer, the blog was moved from a subfolder to a subdomain for various reasons. While the reasons seemed valid at the time, the site's traffic plummeted about 1-2 weeks later. We've still been trying to analyze as many other changes were made a few weeks prior; however, the arrows are pointing to the subfolder to subdomain change which may have really caused this plague. We're now looking into moving it back to see if it will resolve the problem.
-
This does not influence my opinion about anything.
-
Google does not calculate DA
-
I have first-hand experience that merging a subdomain into a folder on a domain can have a kickass effect on your rankings.
-
-
I just tested:
and hubspot.com
both have the same DA in OSE.
I also tested support.hostgator.com and hostgator.com
those have the same DA.
-
If you got Jesse and PhD sayin' something, best go with it.
-
Well yes. I mean it's quite simple - Linking to a subdomain does not pass authority to the root domain. It's easy to test on any site you can find me that has a subdomain. Plug it into OSE and you have yourself two different DAs for that very reason.
It's something I don't see ever changing. There's a reason sub domains are treated separately in terms of incoming links; they are their own entity and I believe this will always be the case. Can't think of why it wouldn't.
-
Thanks guys. I know everyone in our industry is pro sub directories. I guess what I am looking for is irrefutable case studies / fact. Have you guys tested this post 2012? Is there any evidence from 2013 that this is still the case?
-
I second that. You use the blog to build the authority of the main domain.
-
Using a subdirectory will cause all of the potential link juice to flow to your root domain. If you go with a subdomain, the potential links gained from awesome blog content won't do your actual domain any good as far as ranking organically for your targeted keywords.
That's the short version. Subdirectories all the way (assuming this is what you're gaming at of course.)
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
-
Unrelated subdomain hurts domain rankins?
Hi All, One of our subdomains has lot of content created by different users and mostly they are outgoing links from landing pages. Moreover the top ranking content is about "cigarettes" which is nowhere related to our niche. Will this hurt our domain rankings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Subdomain Place Holder
So long story short - we are rolling out a new website earlier than expected. Unfortunately, we are being rushed and in order to make the deadline, we have decided to create a www2. subdomain and release our HTML only version of the site for the next 2 weeks. During that time, the HTML site will be ported over to a Drupal 8 instance, and resume its www. domain. My question is - will a temporary (302) from www to ww2 and then back to www screw the proverbial pooch? Is there a better way to implement a temporary site? Feel free to probe with some questions - I know I could be clearer here 😉 Thanks community!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BDS20160 -
PageRank vs. Domain Authority
A web-site has PR5 but in OSE I see that Domain Authority is only 26. I've also checked and the domain was registered in 2009. Is this normal?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ditoroin0 -
SubDomain vs. SubFolder
I know this subject has been discussed many, many times before. But it is now 2013, and Google continues to tweak and change their algo to build upon the best delivered results for users. So the questions are: Does Google still treat subdomains as a completely separate and unique domain from the root? If so, is it a good SEO strategy to split up, when it fits, a website into subdomains with links pointing back to the root or main domain? As a company we have several subdomains with some of our categories. For example our main site is www.iboats.com. This site has all our boat products. But we set up subdomains several years ago for the following: boatcovers.iboats.com boatpropellers.iboats.com biminitops.iboats.com And we have our fourms as a subdomain: forums.iboats.com Splitting them out were originally done for SEO reasons, but now is more for better managing our main categories. It appears that Google is treating our subdomains as part of our main root domain anyway, so I don't see the SEO value anymore. If we were to move the subdomains into subfolders of the root, I'm wondering if we might see a boost in SEO value having more pages within the main website? I'd be interested in everyone's thoughts on this subject.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tdawson090 -
Should I 301 a penalized domain to another domains subfolder?
I have a niche domain seems to have been hit by Penguin. It had very good rankings before the update, and I think at least a good part of the penalty might be due to overoptimized anchor text. So here is the question; If I decide to take this site down, should I 301 the entire domain to a relevant sub-folder of another site? i.e comtemporaryfurniture.com to domain.com/category/modern-furniture.html Will the penalty get passed onto the new domain? If the penalty is partly due to anchor text, then pointing it to another site's subfolder would mean the tartget URL has more varied anchor text and could boost rankings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
What's the best .NET blog solution?
I asked our developers to implement a WordPress blog on our site and they feel that the technology stack that is required to support WP will interfere with a number of different .NET production applications on that server. I can't justify another server just because of a blog either. They want me to find a .NET blog solution. The only thing that looks decent out there is dotnetblogengine.net. Has anyone had any experience with this tool or any others like it? Thanks, Alex
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbuckles1 -
Guest Blogging Tips
I'm just getting started in guest blogging, and had an idea I wanted to run past the SEOmoz community. I've been told that when guest blogging, it's only worthwhile to post one guest post per domain (if your intention is purely backlinks, which mine is). But I was wondering if it might be more effective to try and place a series of 4 or 5 related posts, and try to get the blog owner to link from one to the other (Click here for Part II of this series). Wouldn't all that internal linking give the pages with my bio links on them that much more authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | menachemp0 -
Subdomain v. subdirectory v. other domain for blogs
I have a good amount of content on our main domain ( http://m00.biz/w4Ljfr ) let's say for discussion it's doctors.com and as you can see, much of it is in subdirectories. Traditionally this was the approach. Now I have some other content on subdomains but it's primarily directories and databases. Now I see that Google is giving subdomains their own SER as if they are a separate site and competitors are locking in the top few results merely by having their content on subdomains. Now I have an opportunity of doing two things: 1. Current content: moving all the content of the past few years on their own subdomain (forum, blog), and I'll be moving forum software anyways. Not sure about our own guide, which has been up there for a while. 2. New content: putting up some new blogs/magazines such as "Doctor's Handbook." Let's say that is a common phrase. I can choose between the following: (a) www.doctors.com/handbook/ (b) handbook.doctors.com/ (c) www.doctorshandbook.com I've got a bit of a quandary here, not sure of the best course of action and am curious to hear from many of you who have handled situations like this before.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | attorney0
