Subdomain redirect

[Nizar.]

Hey guys,

I was thinking about creating subdomains for one of my websites. I want to divide my website in different subdomains (blog.[site].com / directory.[site].com / etc.) but I'm afraid that this will negatively impact my rankings. My blog for example has a lot of supporting content for my products and services that are primarily hosted on the homepage.

Have you guys ever created subdomains at a later stage of your website's existence? What kind of impact did you notice? Would you recommend it?

Thanks a million!

[Nizar.]

Jake,

This helps a lot. Thanks for your insights!

I think your last advice on rolling it our progressively is the best takeaway. I will let the community know how this works out in the end.

Kind regards,

Nizar

[HiveDigitalInc]

Hi Nizar,

Typically we encourage clients to consolidate subdomains onto the main site whenever possible to help consolidate authority. Subdomains are generally viewed as separate sites with regards to authority, so separating them would require each build its own independent authority.

That being said, there are often technical challenges with hosting everything on the same subdomain..e.g. Having a wordpress blog while running BigCommerce, etc.. when you have multiple platforms across different business aspects.  In those cases, we just encourage clients to interlink heavily when possible with things like shared navigation, consistency in design, etc...  to make sure that any opportunities for G to consider them as one and the same are met.

On the flip side, if you have sections like the forum, that may have a significant number of pages, but do not independently draw new backlinks with enough authority to contribute to overall domain authority, parsing this out can reduce the dispersion of authority on your main site (fewer pages), and eliminate crawl depth on unpopular pages.

To make the decision, I would ask myself the following:

1. Do I need to do this to create a better experience for my users?
2. Do these sections independently have significant authority that my main domain may lose by removing the content?
3. Will may main domain continue to attract new links/citations if these sections are removed?
4. Do those pages currently enjoy high rankings/traffic that contribute to specific KPIs that I wouldn't want to have negatively impacted (e.g. do forum visits often result in a product sale or service inquiry)

You could always take this effort in chunks and monitor the impacts, knowing you can roll back if needed.  For example, you could move a lesser popular section such as the directory to the subdomain and watch aggregate traffic changes over the course of a couple of months and see if any negative impact occurs, and if so, if it is small enough of a drop that you could stomach on other sections.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Jake Bohall