Are sub domain names a good idea
-
Hi i have read some info that says that sub domain names help with increase traffic but i am not sure if this is true.
I would like to know if i should use a subdomain name to increase the size of my website and increase traffic.
I have also read that it is a good idea to put a blog on a subdomain name.
Can anyone share their experience and let me know if they have found that sub domains are a good idea
-
As Gary suggested, moving your blog MAY be beneficial depending on the circumstances.
If your site focuses a specific topic, and you wish to add a blog to talk about that topic in further detail, the blog should definitely be on the same domain as the main site. On the other hand, if you wanted to add a personal blog to talk about various topics unrelated to your main site, then that blog should ideally be on a subdomain or separate site.
Many people get confused with the concept of subdomains. A subdomain is a separate website. Think of wordpress.com. It offers thousands of subdomains all managed by different people. The subdomains have no relation at all to each other nor the main site.
Adding a blog to your site can definitely help increase traffic if you add quality articles to the blog. Adding it to your subdomain instead of your main domain is not going to offer any additional traffic benefits. In fact, it will most likely be less because your subdomain will start with a DA of 1 rather then inheriting the main domain's DA. The articles will rank lower in SERPs and receive less traffic.
-
My advice is not to use sub domains as Google treats them as a separate domain, when you have a sub domain you have no flow of direct link juice as you do when you have a sub folder.
You only really need to think about sub domains when you have duplicate content issues for example.
Example of a advisable blog URL:
not advisable:
Hope this helps, Regards
-
A subdomain is a good idea if you want to separate a specific area of a site. So for example you may want to separate a blog or news section. It is also a good idea if you have a very large organisation and want to keep your site on one domain. So for example you may have offices in several different countries of you may want a UK or US subdomain. The advantages being you wouldn't have to build up a complete new domain in the respective country.
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
-
Questions on switching domain name of my site
Hey guys, I purchased a domain name on May 1st and have been running my site on it since then. At the time when I added the domain name to the shopping cart, I felt that it was the best domain name a human could possibly come up with. But now, after two months, I am not so sure about it. And that means I am thinking of getting a new domain name and redirecting the old domain to the new one. Give that the domain is only two months old, there is not much to lose. However, my domain name does have some valuable backlinks, and has built some credibility in the eyes of search engines. According to MOZ Open Site Explorer, its Domain Authority is 10 and Page Authority (homepage) is 20. It's not much, but I fear that if I switch the domain name, I will reset the clock and the new domain name will have to earn the rankings from scratch That said, after searching this forum, I come across articles like this one from google and this 2012 article from MOZ that gave me some confidence. The MOZ article is from 2102, and there have been several changes since then. Is there an updated version of that article, or another legit article on the internet that you can point me to? As you can tell, I want to be more than sure that we don't take any hit during the migration process. Also want to mention that the site is on WordPress -- in case that is relevant. Thank you for your help.
Technical SEO | | deathbyseo0 -
Disavow to all domains?
Hi there, I have several versions of my domain setup in Webmaster tools. Should I upload my disavow file against all of these domains? For example.....
Technical SEO | | niallfred
If I find a link pointing to: http://www.mydomain.com from: http://www.somespammysite.com do I need to add a disavow file in Webmaster tools for all my domain versions or only the version the offending links points towards? So... Only
http://www.mydomain.com
Or
http://www.mydomain.com
http://mydomain.com
https://www.mydomain.com
https://mydomain.com0 -
How to recover search volume after domain name change?
On the 3rd of November we changed our company name and domain. The new site was not changed at all so the 301 process was quite straightforward. The change over was successful, no downtime, all pages redirected correctly (with a few minor exceptions). However, after a few days we started to see more and more links into the new site from the old site. They now stand at over 3 million. And links from the new site to the old site of over 200K. Links from the new site back to the old, were due to us having left a lot of links tucked away on various pages which were possibly causing loops with the 301 redirects on the old site. We fixed these and now there are no remaining links back to the old site, though we are still showing just over 200K links back to the old site. We are also seeing a LOT more back-links on the new site from old junk sites, which are not showing for the old site. A couple of years ago we went through about a year of trying to track down and remove thousands of spam backlinks. We did what we could, got a lot removed, showed Google the evidence, then Google lifted the penalty and said they had made some changes that meant the links were no longer causing the penalty. I added the old disavow file to the new site, but it doesn't cover a fraction of the sites which are being displayed as providing backlinks... many of which are clearly spammy. Is it possible that Google made some manual actions to lift the penalties but failed to associate these changes with the new domain? Changes that were not included in the disavow file? All help appreciated.
Technical SEO | | Exotissimo0 -
Are .clinic domains effective?
We acquired a .clinic domain for a client, they are right now running under a .ca and I was just wondering if there were any cons to making the switch. On the flip side are there any pros? I've tried to search for the answer but couldn't seem to come across anything, thank you if you have any knowledge or could point me to a resource.
Technical SEO | | webignite0 -
Blocking Test Pages Enmasse on Sub-domain
Hello, We have thousands of test pages on a sub-domain of our site. Unfortunately at some point, these pages were visible to search engines and got indexed. Subsequently, we made a change to the robots.txt file for the test sub-domain. Gradually, over a period of a few weeks, the impressions and clicks as reported by Google Webmaster Tools fell off for the test. sub-domain. We are not able to implement the no index tag in the head section of the pages given the limitations of our CMS. Would blocking off Google bot via the firewall enmasse for all the test pages have any negative consequences for the main domain that houses the real live content for our sites (which we would like to of course remain in the Google index). Many thanks
Technical SEO | | CeeC-Blogger0 -
Extra Sub Directory
Anything wrong with a URL structure like: www.mysite.com/process/widgets/red-widgets Where the DIR: /process/ is completely empty e.g. you get a 404 if you go to www.mysite.com/process/ and it has no content within. This URL structure was setup before they knew what SEO was...wondering if it's worth the pain the 301 and restructure new URLs or is it ok to leave as is?
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Move established site from .co.uk to .org - good or bad idea?
I am currently considering moving our site from the current .co.uk domain to the .org version which we also own. The site is established and indexed for 7 years, ranks well and has circa 10k traffic per month which is mainly UK & US traffic. The reason for the change to the .org domain is to make the site more global facing and give us the opportunity to develop the site into multi language within directories (.org/es/ etc.) and then target those to the local search engines. For the kind of site it is (community based) it wouldn’t really work to split this into lots of separate country targeted domains. So the choice is to either stick with the .co.uk and add the other foreign language specific content in directories within the .co.uk or move to the .org and do the same (there is also a potential third option of purchasing the .com which is currently unused but that could be pricey!) We are also planning a big overhaul of the site with redesign, lots of added content and reorganisation of the site – but are thinking that it would be better to move the domain on a 1:1 basis first with the current design, content and URL structure in place and then do the other changes 2 or 3 months down the line. I have read up on SEOmoz, google guidelines etc on moving a site to a new domain and understand the theoretical approach of moving the site and the steps to take (1to1 301 redirects, sitemaps on old and new etc) and I will retain ownership of the .co.uk so the redirects can remain in place indefinitely. However having worked so hard to get the site to where it is in the search engines and traffic levels I am very worried about whether the domain change is a good move. I am more than happy to accept a temporary fluctuation in rankings & traffic for 1 – 4 weeks as reported may happen as long as I can be sure it will return after a temporary period and be as strong (or almost as strong) as the previous rankings / traffic. Looking for peoples experiences to give me the confidence / reassurance to go ahead with this or any info on why I shouldn’t Thanks in advance for your advice. Adrian.
Technical SEO | | Zilla0 -
Switch domain from one account to another at domain registrar
We need to move our domain from one account to another at our domain registrar (which is Moniker). Both the "from" account and "to" account will be at Moniker. The "from" account currently has privacy settings enabled and we'd also put these in place for the "to" account. Has anyone done this and see any impact on SEO? Is there any big or common mistakes that I should be aware of? Thanks all!
Technical SEO | | evoNick0