Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Subdomain versus Subfolder for Local SEO
-
Hello Moz World,
I'm wanting to know the best practices for utilizing a subdomain versus a subfolder for multi location businesses, i.e. miami.example.com vs. example.com/miami; I would think that that utilizing the subdomain would make more sense for a national organization with many differing locations, while a subfolder would make more sense for a smaller more nearby locations. I wanted to know if anyone has any a/b examples or when it should go one way or another?
Thank you,
Kristin Miller
-
Hi Richard, I understand that it gets posted about in fair detail , but I do feel that the issue of when trying to create a branded enterprise for an SMB that's trying to move toward franchising is typically not addressed. This was a particular situation I was inquiring about not just a general inquiry about subdomains versus subfolders.
-
Good points all Richard!
"Those that don't have Google+ and haven't setup social and other profiles or have NAP listings typically rank poorly even if they are EMD."
Yes, sorry I should have qualified I was only talking about local listings in the pack. In regular organic it's somewhat different. The specific potential benefit I was pointing out, only works for local pinned listings. And Google mainly seems to still like EMDs and PMDs in local pack listings .
But like you said you can't just do any one thing and expect to rank. You can have a subdomain or even an EMD and if everything else isn't optimized well or there are violations or the competition is stronger, you still may not rank.
-
Linda, I think the reason EMDs still work is because of their citations and links from those and branded profiles. Mostly, these type of links don't show in tools like OSE and Ahrefs. If you really look, those that have an address, and Google+ listing will have a lot more listings elsewhere because of syndication and include keyword rich titles, content on the page, etc. Those that don't have Google+ and haven't setup social and other profiles or have NAP listings typically rank poorly even if they are EMD. The other trend I've noticed is that some of these rank well for variations of their phrase (because I feel they are getting special treatment as a brand) but for something in the same niche but not included in their brand terms, they don't necessarily rank well for.
-
However, just an FYI with something else to consider. I've been meaning to do a post about this with examples, so this Q will hopefully motivate me to get it done...
We know how Google loves EMDs and PMDs in local. In competitive markets they are usually the ones that rank on top.
If the link on the G+ L page is domain.com/miami. Then what shows on the G+ L page AND in the SERPs is simply domain.com
However if the link on the G+ L page is miami.domain.com then city ends up showing on the domain on G+ L and in the SERPS.
Example: See Mr Rooter in the B spot here: https://www.google.com/search?q=memphis+plumber
In the SERPs in the URL Memphis is highlighted by Google since the query was Memphis Plumber.And Memphis is in the URL on the G+ L and shows up like this: memphis.mrrooter.com where otherwise memphis would be cut off and not showing on the page: https://plus.google.com/101436210710682267977/about (Not a client or anything, just one of many random examples I've been collecting for my subdomain post)
Now I'm not saying you should use subdomains just for this reason. And not even saying it will necessarily help ranking, even though I've seen tons of subdomains that rank high.
Just throwing it out there for consideration and think the benefits should be weighed against the other pros and cons.
What do you think? Do you think having city in the URL in the SERPs and on the G+ L page could possibly help with ranking in that city?
-
Hi Kristin,
While I don't have any a/b testing to share on this, I personally prefer the subfolder approach and would write the URL:
I simply find subfolders easier to work with, but that's a matter of opinion.
-
This is probably the number one question asked in the Q&A section. I think it gets answered about every week. Subfolder is preferred as subdomains can potentially be treated as a separate website. Keep them in subfolders and you'll help the entire site.
-
Additionally, for a larger practice I feel that a subdomain logically makes more sense to be able to market a franchise as a whole. Then utilizing the subdomains to optiize an individual location level.
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
-
Which are the best off-page SEO techniques for 2020?
I have just published an awesome website or blog, and i really worked hard keeping everything perfect. Do you think it’s enough? Having a perfect blog, website or business is just enough. i need readers for my blog, visitors to my website, and customers for my business. So, what to do?
Local Website Optimization | | boxinghunter0 -
Local SEO Over Optimization
We are targeting a bunch of services for our local business that works in and around their location. I'm concerned about over optimization and need some guidance on whether these points should be resolved. The company is based in a city and works mostly in the city but also in the surrounding areas. Currently, the site has 6 services pages (accessible via main nav) targeting the same location i.e. “Made Up Service London”, “Imaginary Service London” (with URLs and H1 tags etc. in place containing this location). However this is soon going to become 9 services pages, I am concerned that the repetition of this one location is starting to look spammy, especially as its where the company is based. Initially, I also wanted pages targeting the same services in other nearby areas. For example “Made Up Service Surrey”, “Imaginary Service Essex”. This has not happened as the info available has been too sporadic. I was going to add links to relevant case studies into these pages to beef up the content and add interest. To that end, we came up with case studies, but after a while, I noticed that these are also largely focused on the primary location. So out of 32 case studies, we have 19 focused on the primary location again with URL’s and H1 tags etc containing the location keyword. So in total, we have 25 pages optimized for the location (soon to be 28 and more if further case studies are added). My initial feeling was that the inclusion of pages targeting services in other locations would legitimize what we have done with the main pages. But obviously we have not got these pages in place and I question whether we ever will. What is my best course of action moving forward?
Local Website Optimization | | GrouchyKids1 -
Should Multi Location Businesses "Local Content Silo" Their Services Pages?
I manage a site for a medical practice that has two locations. We already have a location page for each office location and we have the NAP for both locations in the footer of every page. I'm considering making a change to the structure of the site to help it rank better for individual services at each of the two locations, which I think will help pages rank in their specific locales by having the city name in the URL. However, I'm concerned about diluting the domain authority that gets passed to the pages by moving them deeper in the site's structure. For instance, the services URLs are currently structured like this: www.domain.com/services/teeth-whitening (where the service is offered in each of the two locations) Would it make sense to move to a structure more like www.domain.com/city1name/teeth-whitening www.domain.com/city2name/teeth-whitening Does anyone have insight from dealing with multi-location brands on the best way to go about this?
Local Website Optimization | | formandfunctionagency1 -
More pages on website better for SEO?
Hi all, Is creating more pages better for SEO? Of course the pages being valuable content. Is this because you want the user to spend as much time as possible on your site. A lot of my competitors websites seem to have more pages than mine and their domain authorities are higher, for example the services we provide are all on one page and for my competitors each services as its own page. Kind Regards, Aqib
Local Website Optimization | | SMCCoachHire0 -
Applying NAP Local Schema Markup to a Virtual Location: spamming or not?
I have a client that has multiple virtual locations to show website visitors where they provide delivery services. These are individual pages that include unique phone numbers, zip codes, city & state. However there is no address (this is just a service area). We wanted to apply schematic markup to these landing pages. Our development team successfully applied schema to the phone, state, city, etc. However for just the address property they said VIRTUAL LOCATION. This checked out fine on the Google structured data testing tool. Our question is this; can just having VIRTUAL LOCATION for the address property be construed as spamming? This landing page is providing pertinent information for the end user. However since there is no brick and mortar address I'm trying to determine if having VIRTUAL LOCATION as the value could be frowned upon by Google. Any insight would be very helpful. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | RosemaryB1 -
How to correctly move subdomain to subfolder (google webmaster)?
Hello, This is my first post in here 🙂 I just wondered what is the correct way to move a subdomain to subfolder? I've moved it, re-done sitemap, so that main website would include a subfolder, as they are part of one big website now (it was something like a blog on a subdomain). Subdomain now does correct 301 redirects. Submitted new sitemap to google, asked google to re-fetch the whole domain (thus subfolder should be re-fetched too, as it's part of main nav). The areas i'm in doubt: I can tell google that the domain got moved, however it is moved to the one that is already approved in the same account, but is in a subfolder, so should i do this? Or should i simply somehow erase it on webmaster? The blog was launched about a month ago, and it isn't perfectly optimized yet, it wasn't on google SERPs pretty much at all, excluding googling it straightly, and there are pretty much 0 traffic from google, almost all of it is either direct either referral, mostly social, Thanks, Pavel
Local Website Optimization | | PavelGro920 -
Does the Location of my Server effect my SEO?
Does the geographic Location of my Server effect my SEO? HELP US! We are arguing for 3 weeks already. My partner has mentioned multiple times in the past that "since 2013 google does not require your server to be in the country you are targeting for seo"
Local Website Optimization | | DanielBernhardt
And that actually all they care about is if its a good and fast server - not where its physically located in the world. I am a strong believer that the geographic location of your server directly effects your SEO ranking... lets say if you want to target www.google.ru for your seo, best you have a server located in Russia for hosting your website.. WHO IS RIGHT? Choose the winner and base the facts.
If anybody has the correct answer and information to base it on it will help us alot - and maybe even spare some unnecessary violent between us two! we found some articles across the web, sadly they are all dated back to 2012.... Thanks in Advance for all the help guys!0 -
Does building multiple websites hurt you seo wise? Good or bad strategy?
HI,rategy. So I spoke to a local Colorado seo company and they suggested to find whatever keywords is the most searched under my GWT's and put .com behind it and build other sites for other keywords. I was curious about this type of strategy. Does this work? This seo guy said I could just get a DBA bank account and such for each domain name etc. I am not wanting to mislead anyone, but I am curious if for the sake of promoting other services, if creating other websites with partial and EMD's are worthwhile? Another issue I worry about is if I put my companies phone number, then next thing you know there is 3 or 4 sites that use that same phone number. To me this does not build trust with Google. But being I am learning, maybe this is a common strategy, or doomed from the start. Just curious what you think. Would you build other sites to try and rank for other services? Or keep one sites and maximize it? Thank you for your thoughts. I just do not want to pay $3000 per site if it will hurt not help.
Local Website Optimization | | Berner0