Which is better for linkbuilding - Internal or external blog?
-
Well, here's one for the linkbuilding experts.
I'm having a discussion with a client regarding a linkbuilding campaign utilizing a blog. Which is better:
A. Setting up a blog on a subdomain (blog.website.com) and anchortextlinking to main domain (website.com/page)?
or
B. Setting up a blog on an external domain (external-blog.com) and anchortextlinking to client domain (website.com/page)?
I've had success earlier with a blog on a subdomain (solution A), but everyone in the internets-sphere says external links is better....
Well, which is it?
-
Just throwing this angle out there ... it depends on a few factors.
Let's say you've got a blog for a local business that really has little momentum. The fact that they are getting any links that is from an external IP address (given that is the case) may be better than if they hosted that same content at domain.com/blog.
To me though, if it is done right, and the blog is getting traction, visits, shares, retweets, and links, you would prefer those are associated with your main domain, i.e. domain.com/blog
I'm not a fan of the subdomain option, assuming it shares the IP of your main domain. That is kind of the worst of both worlds.
-
for clarity, here is another vote for:
-
Heh...
No, it's my clients site.
That's why the subdomain solution is the best, cause then I'll control the blog 100% and the client can do whatever they like on their main site....You've "twisted" (unintentionally I pressume) my initial question ;o)
-
I urge you to reread the replies of Jeffrey, Marcus and Tom.
I have placed all of my blogs in mysite.com/blog/
I have also redirected subdomains into folders and the results have been kickass.
Still, its your site and you can do as you please.
-
I agree. If this was my site I would place it in a folder. My blogs are in folders.
-
Hi guys.
Thanks for the awesomely fast replies...
I'll go with my initial instincs - subdomain blog (blog.website.com).
-
I would also recommend a third option ie. www.companysite.com/blog (this way backlinks will be strengthening your domain's authority) Use it to communicate with your customers, publish good content to attract external links.
-
If I'm understanding correctly, you're trying to site up a blog for a company and to derive SEO benefit from that blog by sending links back to the main site?
First off, if you're trying to acquire links to your site, I wouldn't recommend either strategy. A company blog is typically used to write great content and have other sites link back to your content.
If you're using either of your strategies (A or B), there might not be much value for a link back to your own website depending on how the websites are hosted from the same server (see here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/do-sites-on-the-same-c-block-and-same-server-count-as-seperate-linking-root-domains-when-linking-to-each-other)
I would recommend this: set up a blog at either blog.website.com or website.com/blog and post content on their. It can link back to your website.com/pages. No, these don't count as external links, but there is still the potential for SEO benefit.
If your write great content, you can earn links from external sites, which is potentially more valuable and seems to be what you are looking for.
-
That is a question with no answer, it's like saying, which is the better hair style, which is the better film, which is the best Beatles album, it simply does not have a definite or simple answer.
The best blog is the one you make a lot of effort with and make valuable to the intended readers. If the only purpose of the blog is to throw up some quickfire content to build links, then neither will do any great good.
In fact, I would suggest a third option, the best blog is the one on the main domain, the one that enriches the site, allows you to link to your products / services where applicable and to hopefully generate a readership and some external links into the main domain.
If you want a quick fix to build some text links, the subdomain or external options are both relevant, but don't expect them to sky rocket you to the top of the rankings unless you make the content valuable and if you are going to do that, then put the blog on the site itself.
Probably not the answer you were looking for so... sorry!
Marcus
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
-
External Ranking Help
Hello, I am working on the following website: completesteamclean.ca and I have reached a plateau on how to increase my ranking to defeat my two top competitors. When I run competitive link metrics it would appear that where I seem to be lacking is in external links and linking root domains. Does anyone have any tips on how I can build these areas of the website? Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
Link Building | | MainstreamMktg0 -
Moving blogs to different domain
Hey guys, We currently have some blogs on one of our pages (fraserisland.com.au) and we are launching a complete rebranding of our sites. We want to move the blogs from fraserisland.com.au to the new parent page of travelfreedom.com.au (but still link it to fraserisland.com.au), however I don't know what affect this will have on the ranking of the blogs. The biggest thing I'm worried about is that the domain will be completely different, and not a sub domain, but I'm not sure what impact this will have on the effectiveness of SEO on the blog. Thanks guys
Link Building | | Mysites0 -
External Backlinks - Should I remove/disavow external blog posts done by SEO company?
Last year my company hired an SEO company to build backlinks for targeted achor text keywords. It turns out that they wrote average to below average blog posts that had content related to my business, but that were placed on odd websites, not related to my business. They did this for about one year before I fired them. Should I try to get each of those blog posts removed and then disavow them? If the external links back to my site are nofollow then it is my understanding that I don't really need to worry about them...is that accurate? Is it too risky to keep any external backlinked content alive when it is on a site that is unrelated to my business?
Link Building | | ajgrossman0 -
Is guest blogging still working?
Hi, Anyone still using guest blog tatics (sush as http://myblogguest.com/) as an effort on seo? Is that still a valid option nowadays. Thanks
Link Building | | LauraHT0 -
Poor Blog and Website DA and links
Hi There We have a mature website and a mature blog with over 500 genuine blogs written on it over 4 years. In terms of actual "people" value it has to be high. We used to get 1000 visitors per day, we now get 300. We still have 850 subscribers so its of a certain size. However we have been hit by the Penguin/Panda updates and our DA has dropped to what everyone is telling us is too low for a site like this and we still have a google backlink problem, unyet we only have 190 external links that we think are all OK now. The problem we have is that we seem to have too many links from the blog to the main website with the same anchor text. This has occurred with a blogroll style link to the home page which appears on every post/page of the blog, also I think we have too many anchor same anchor text links to product pages (Motorola ES400) and category pages (Tablet PC). We're going through changing these now so that we have the right mix but the specific questions I wanted to ask were: 1. Will loads of links with the same anchor text affect us if the blog is counted as internal links. Its on the same "blog" sub-domain as the main website. 2. Will this affect the DA of both sites? 3. Is Wordpress capable of damaging us with all the extra pages it creates automatically. We've done nothing but genuine content posting here and i'm sure we can get it back but it kind of really demotivates you when 2/3rds of your traffic goes overnight. Many thanks for any help.
Link Building | | Raptor-crew0 -
Reposting Blog posts on 3rd party sites
We have a few informational blog posts that are valuable to some readers. We have posted them in our blog but were contemplating posting them on 3rd party blogging websites such as Blogger, Squidoo, etc.. Ideally we would continue to maintain these accounts with multiple blog posts, but would all be reposts of the original blog. These are not half english blog posts just hoping to gain a better Google rank. They will provide value to the readers who might not be finding their way to our website directly. Is posting these blog posts on the 3rd party websites, linking back to the original article and maybe some products that are related to the specific document going to negatively affect our rankings due to the duplication of the content?
Link Building | | wishmedia0 -
Are directories still an option for linkbuilding
I know that after the recent slate of Google updates, many free directories got taken down. We've typically used the list of directories placed on SEOmoz (www.seomoz.org/directories). Before adding a site to a directory, we always check to see if it is indexed by Google. Is this still a safe option or should directories be avoided?
Link Building | | TopFloor0 -
Too many links in my blog post created by comments. Should I worry?
Every year, we do a popular "Favourite pictures of the year" contest where people vote on the best picture (i.e: their mate's) in order to win something. But I just found that I'm going way over the "Too many links" limit and I think it's because of all the comments. 1. Is it a problem 2. Is there a way to de-activate the links? Thank you! 🙂 Ioan
Link Building | | IoanSaid0