Does a blog on a subdomain pass on SEO credit to the main domain?
-
When setting up a Hubspot blog you are asked to create a subdomain such as blog.website.com in order to have the blog hosted there.
Two questions:
1. Does a blog on a subdomain pass on SEO credit to the main domain?
My understanding is that a subdomain is treated like a unique site but I'm not finding current articles to confirm this is still true.2. If it does not pass on credit to the main domain and the subdomain is only building "SEO love" for itself but your posts are getting found and driving conversions... from a marketing perspective does this non-transfer of SEO credit really matter? Meaning if blog.website.com is linked to the navigation on website.com, your site has quality content, has relevant calls to action, and you are lead nurturing like a good marketer... does the passing of SEO credit matter if your posts are what's getting found and filling the top of the funnel?
Thank you in advance,
Christine -
Hi Nicole,
Just to mention first off my comment's more regarding sub domains more than Hubspot specifically. I'll try to answer your question directly:
Does one lose any credibility or get diluted by putting said blog on a subdomain rather than in a subdirectory folder?
You may loose credibility (or gain if you put it on a sub folder) by the fact a subdomain could look 'new' compared to an existing website but to be honest its nominal in the big picture. As for credibility that's more for the users point of view than Google's (unless you're planning on being very naughty with the site) but with good content and branding this shouldn't be a problem.
There are oodles of topics on subdomains vs. subfolders out there for you to research but try not to over think it too much as it really all boils down to what you want out of it. You can over come most of the problems you feel you may have. Link diluting etc. is only really a problem if you're planning on posting the same content on both domains as they would literally competing with one another but if its unique and useful info they it should rank on its own merit (with some basic SEO/SEM)
If you are unsure or feel inexperienced I'd recommend putting it on your site then you will get a boost from your blog (see Moz example above) without as much work, so unless you want to distance your main site from the blog this should cover you well.
if in doubt do more research, ask more people get all the info until you feel you're all covered.
Best of luck with your blog and I hope it all goes swimmingly.
-
Christine and I are working on this project together and my ongoing concern is not so much if they get credit passed on to them (logically I would think if domain owners could do this, it would be considered a no-no by google) yet more so if it detracts in any way from the main URL. i.e. diluting the value of the content on the main URL because it competes for the same keywords, etc. therefor 'siphoning' link credit.
This is my first time working with a tool like Hubspot and I feel strongly that it does more SEO harm than it does good. However, my lack of knowledge in the area of Hubspot could be why I feel that way.
So as a follow-up to Christine's question, does one lose any credibility or get diluted by putting said blog on a subdomain rather than in a subdirectory folder?
Thanks so much in advance!
-
Hi Cristine,
Hope you've got found your answer but I just wanted to also give my input.
Whilst they do pass some "link juice" its more akin to creating a separate site meaning double the work, this can be fine if that's what you want but for me its a lot easier to create e.g. www.yoursite.com/blog then any links created also benefit your site as well any users can also browse your site straight from your blog pretty easy etc. You can see what Matt Cutts said about a similar subject way back in 2007 here - https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/
Regarding your second point if it's getting found and is working that fantastic but what is the likelihood of this? If you're running an email marketing campaign and relying on direct traffic this may not be an issue but I don't know of many sites that rank purely on their content alone from the start you can give yourself a bit of a boost from your main domain via a subfolder.
In Summary- If your site is getting found, getting exposure and all that jazz fantastic give your self a pat on the back, however if not there is nearly double the work on trying to get a subdomain to rank compared to having it on your main site, this is fine for some of the experts but if not I'd recommend you give this a try first and if you want you can move it onto its own subdomain at a later date. In terms of metric unfortunately they do matter if you're after exposure and organic exposure.
Finally you can also see (via Q&A) some example here - http://moz.com/community/q/moz-s-official-stance-on-subdomain-vs-subfolder-does-it-need-updating
Hope that helps and best of luck with your blog.
-
Thanks Ruben. Their blog is already set up on a subdomain. For my own site though I have our blog on WP and use the exact plugins you mentioned.
-
From Moz-
Since search engines keep different metrics for domains than they do subdomains, it is recommended that webmasters place link-worthy content like blogs in subfolders rather than subdomains. (i.e. www.example.com/blog/ rather than blog.example.com) The notable exceptions to this are language-specific websites. (i.e., en.example.com for the English version of the website).
For your second question-
As long as you are getting conversions that is all that really matters. It doesn't matter if it is coming from your domain or subdomain.
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 it reasonable to not give an SEO access to our CMS?
A client (we designed their website) recently employed an SEO who required FTP access or access to the CMS. We told the client they would need to take full responsibility for any updates the SEO carried out, otherwise, the SEO could send over the changes and we would put them in at no extra cost to the client. The client didn't want to take responsibility and denied the SEO access to the CMS, and told the SEO to send over the completed work for us to put into the site. The SEO was not happy with this arrangement, and didn't seem to understand that we needed to trust him before access was would be given at a future date. Other SEO's have never had a problem with this arrangement, but this SEO claimed what they do is secret and for no one else to see. SEO want's to proceed, client doesn't want to proceed, we are happy to update the website with the client's approval. This particular client has a reputation for backing out of things. Also from the initial client, SEO contact the SEO was ready to update the website within 24 hours. Are we being unreasonable?
Industry News | | ChristinaRadisic1 -
What are the top 20 whitelisted SEO content publishing channels?
With Hubpages in the penalty box right now, I am looking for other inbound marketing channels to syndicate original content to relevant audiences. I am currently using SlideShare, but I am looking for other channels. Will you share 10-20 of your recommended content publishing channels that syndicate SEO content? Context: What I need are channels that are: Low to no budget ($0-50 annual, if they exist) Ability to upload SEO content - landing pages, infographics, blog posts, images, videos. Any content type - channels that publish at least 1 of each of the content types I mentioned Targeted, relevant traffic (we would assess that one) Ability to comment, share or vote (Like) the content White-listed by Google, most importantly Examples:
Industry News | | michaeleagar
Slideshare, HubPages (blacklisted by Google for now), and Squidoo (acquired by HubPages)1 -
International pages - SEO - which metatags to use?
I'm trying to get my International pages set up correctly for SEO
Industry News | | MikeSEOTruven
Can you tell me which of the following meta-tags are the ones to use on the pages?
I've heard that some might be obsolete, so will it hurt if I throw on all 3 or just choose 1? Example: Italian language page0 -
Impact SEO when sharing with other PC urls a mobile website url
Struggle with the following impact on SEO if starting to share mobile website URL. We have multiple PC urls (5 different domains).For example www.site1.com, www.site2.com, www.site3.com, www.site4.com and www.site5.com. Now I have to convince other people within the company not to use one mobile website url for all different domains. The intention is to direct all mobile traffic from site1, site2, site3, site4 and site5 to the url: m.site4.com. Based on the following articles I already wanted to combine the www.site4.com with the m.site4.com to one entity, based on the third method which is supported by Google. https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details and http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/changes-in-rankings-of-smartphone_11.html But now I have to give SEO impact feedback on the other domains. The obvious one is site1, site2, site3 and site5 will not have positive mobile SERP indexation. Second impact: Duplicated content issues across multiple websites.
Industry News | | Letty
Third impact:users from site1, site2, site3 and site5 will see the change in URL, could give a negative user experience.
Fourth impact: text on site1 / site2 / site3 / site5 is not the same as on site 4 this will implement maybe hidden content issues, which could cause penalties. Do I miss other negative SEO impact, I have been searching a lot of the articles / blogs, Q&A but can't really find sufficient information about this particular subject. Any feedback or links to articles / blogs / Q&A are highly appreciated.0 -
Does Penguin Help Negative SEO?
With negative link targeting seeming to become more and more of a ‘standard practice’ for more and more agencies and freelance SEOs (I, for one, have had to use the disavow tool far more than I ever thought I would) and the fact that there are more “link building services” that really only build ‘crap’ links than there were when that type of link building worked, I am honestly a bit afraid that Google is really just pushing SEO’s to the ‘dark side’ or at least handing black hat link builders a great tool for bringing down the competition. I had one SEO actually say to me “If my client can’t recover than at least I can target everyone that jumped ahead of them and only spend around $300 on bad link building”. This came from someone I NEVER thought would say anything of the sort and really got me to thinking’ “will this be the future of SEO?” I know the answer is no but still, it seems more and more people are just throwing their hands up and targeting competition rather than working on their own websites and with updates like Penguin I am afraid that more of my time will be spent disavowing links than building them.
Industry News | | Vizergy0 -
What would an SEO be paid with these skills?
Hello, What would an SEO with these skills be paid (per hour in a larger company in a lower income state): 9 years in the field of SEO
Industry News | | BobGW
Beginning and moderate link building skills
Excellent on-site optimization skills
Moderate Google Analytic skills
Complete HTML skills
Good to advanced CSS
Some PHP
5 years experience as a small business web designer
6 years experience working with eCommerce SEO
beginning to somewhat moderate Social media skills
beginning to moderate PPC, mainly Adwords
A foundation for local SEO
All the platforms that go with the above, like Wordpress, MS Office, Adobe Creative Suite, etc. etc.0 -
Domain crowding, when exactly?
So I was reading the latest search improvements to Google search on http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/search-quality-highlights-53-changes.html Good to see they are doing something about "domain diversity" explained as More domain diversity. [launch codename "Horde", project codename "Domain Crowding"] Sometimes search returns too many results from the same domain. This change helps surface content from a more diverse set of domains. OK so it sounds good, right? I was hopeful too but I have been running a few queries myself to see how it helped us. Not even a single change yet. So, I'm wondering how this works. They make a change and it takes some time to see it actually happens? Or is it all done for now and it just fixed a small part of the problem and we have to wait for another change? I'd have been ok if the authority site with 3 links actually were useful links. Unfortunately (not for only competitors, but Google search users too) 2 of the links listed are pages from 2008 and is not really helping anyone.
Industry News | | Gamer070 -
When will Rand put out "Art of SEO 2nd Edition"? (ANSWER: IN ABOUT 2 WEEKS)
First edition was printed in the end of 2009. Great Book. Needs updating of course. I would buy the next edition if it was updated in an awesome way that I know Rand and the others would do.
Industry News | | stubby0