Sub-directories or Nah

[Meier]

Hey MOz Squad,

So I have a locksmith company with 7 locations all up and down the west coast. We set up each location in a sub-directory (mainly because they used to have other websites for these locations and we wanted to try and keep the juice so we 301 redirected back to these subdiretories)

But it's making our efforts so tough because every time I want to change something I have to do it seven times!

DO the sub directories really matter that munch for rank? One of my partners says google treats it like it own website and trying to rank just a page on a website for a certain city is harder. What do you guys think Keep the subs or ditch em?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Meier!

Very good feedback from the community, and scenario you are describing is why most Local SEOs would recommend the approach of a single domain with landing pages on it for each of the 7 locations. This way, every single thing that you do to build up the brand simultaneously benefits all the locations, instead of this requiring 7 separate efforts every time you want to make a marketing decision.

[ChrisAshton]

Hi Meier,

I completely agree with Matt. In theory, you can get a better focus by having a separate domain for each location. In practice though, the amount of work required to do this just isn't worth it.

As Matt mentioned, you'll need to build 2 link profiles, write 2 sets of content (without them being duplicate!), manage and optimise 2 sites etc.

Just create and optimise a separate page for each location and make sure the site structure/nav makes sense.

[MattRoney]

Hi Meier,

Since Google will recognize each subdomain as effectively its own site, each one will have to rank on its own terms. la.website.com won't get any benefit from links pointing at sf.website.com, for example.

Personally, I think the subdomains just make things harder.

[Meier]

I like where you are going with this.

So would it help SEO if google treated these as separate entities though? I have had websites where I am trying to rank for other location by making a page for that city and it just seems tougher.

[ChrisAshton]

What your friend is talking about is actually a subdomain, not a subdirectory. If you had subdomains like sf.website.com and la.website.com then yes, they're be treated as separate entities. Subfolders aren't that much of a big deal.

That said, the simpler your site structure, the better. It's going to help your crawl budget and if you have the opportunity to simplify a site you plan to work on for years, why not spend a few hours doing it now and save yourself the heartache for years to come?