Create new subdomain or new site for new Niche Product?
-
We have an existing large site with strong, relevant traffic, including excellent SEO traffic. The company wants to launch a new business offering, specifically targeted at the "small business" segment. Because the "small business" customer is substantially different from the traditional "large corporation" customer, the company has decided to create a completely independent microsite for the "small business" market. Purely from a Marketing and Communications standpoint, this makes sense.
From an SEO perspective, we have 2 options:
- Create the new "small business" microsite on a subdomain of the existing site, and benefit from the strong domain authority and trust of the existing site.
- Build the microsite on a separate domain with exact primary keyword match in the domain name.
My sense is that option #1 is by far the better option in the short and long run. Am I correct?
Thanks in advance!
-
Thanks to everybody who's weighed in on this discussion. Do y'all think subfolders are the way to go for new web content for a big company with a well-established website even if the main site won't do much linking to the subfolder and the covered topics are separate? Is much link mojo passed purely as a property of the domain's strength (if domain.com is reputable, domain.com/folder/ must be, too)? Or is the majority of authority established because of the internal links?
-
Thanks, Nakul.
I very much appreciate your comments and insight.
Cheers - Axel
-
As I said I completely agree with you. There's is certainly "some" level of trust passed on and WebSEO's comment sounds right, because if that would not be the case that blogs on xxxx.blogspot.com and xxxx.wordpress.com would rank like crazy. So yes, number of sub-domains on a domain as well as the interlinking between the domain and the sub-domain would certainly influence the strength of the sub-domain, a little bit more.
The most important factor here that should help you make the decision easily is the usability and brand awareness of the sub-domain when it's attached onto your main authority/brand site.
As I said above in my 1st post and EGOL agreed, it would have been much stronger if you were able to do it as a sub-folder but I understand the technology issues. You might also want to look into Reverse Proxy if sub-folder is an option.
-
Agree. Apparently domain authority and trust does not pass 100% to a subdomain. I've searched thru SEOmoz high and low and cannot find this issue being adequately addressed. (???)
But check out this Sept 2010 post by webseo: www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/multiple-domains-vs-subdomains-vs-folders-in-seo/
"WebSEOAnalytics.com team has done extensive analysis in the past on the Data that we collect from the reports of our SEO tools. Based on those data there are strong indications that a part of Authority and Trust passes to the subdomains only when the domain has a small number of subdomains and when the link structure of the main website passes enough link juice to them. "
And this post on Google Webmaster blog, suggesting that links between a subdomain and a domain are essentially seen as "internal" links.
So maybe there is some advantage passed from domain to subdomain?
I would surely love to see Rand or one of the other experts at SEOmoz give their take on this issue.
-
You are not, you are absolutely right on the way you are thinking. Except that I have not seen any of that "root domain" advantage get passed onto the sub-domain level.
If your main-domain is a brand domain, maybe you could do the sub-domain and I understand your reasoning behind it, however I would not expect the sub-domain to trickle through the SERPS and get the domain authority and trust like your root level domain does.
-
Thanks EGOL and Nakul. Agree, a subfolder would be the best solution. Unfortunately we cannot do the subfolder approach. The sites use completely different platforms/ CMS, and so the options are either subdirectory or completely new domain.
The problem with a new domain is that there is no transfer of domain trust or authority from the existing site to the new microsite. It is a painful, slow, long-term building process. It seems that with the recent Matt Cutts announcement on Google treatment of subdomains, many SEOs are now suggesting that some of the root domain equity does indeed transfer from root to subdomain.
And it actually makes more sense from a holistic user and SEO perspective to use a subdomain. The two offerings are linked from a product category perspective, with one targeted at the needs of the small business user (hence different products, messages, and look & feel), and one targeted at the traditional corporate user. No duplicate content, yet intrinsically linked. I also think that small business users will look at it positively as they see that a "strong, established brand" is behind this targeted product. I have to think that Google (and other SE) algorithms, which are trying to more and more mirror human preferences, would see the subdomain/ domain linkage as positive.
Am I "off-base" with my thinking?
-
I agree with the subfolder.
-
The sub-domain won't essentially help you. Think of your sub-domain as a separate domain, almost. If it's possible from branding and other reasons, do a sub-folder and if that does not make sense or is not doable, your best best is go got Option 2. That according to me sounds better from Search perspective both short term as well as long run.
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
-
Ranking Issue for New Site
Hi all, I have got a specific SEO challenge. 6 months ago, we started to build an eCommerce site (located in the UK). In order to speed up the site launch, we copied the entire site over from an existing site based in Ireland. Now, the new UK site has been running for 5 months. Google has indexed many pages, which is good, but we can't rank high (position: between 20-30 for most pages). We thought it was because of content duplication in spite of different regions. So we tried to optimize the pages for the UK site to make them more UK-related and avoid content duplication. I've also used schema to tell google it's a UK-based site and set up Google my business and got more local citations. Besides, If you could give me any suggestions, it'd be perfect.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Insightful_Media
Thank you so much for your time and advice.1 -
New Subdomain & Best Way To Index
We have an ecommerce site, we'll say at https://example.com. We have created a series of brand new landing pages, mainly for PPC and Social at https://sub.example.com, but would also like for these to get indexed. These are built on Unbounce so there is an easy option to simply uncheck the box that says "block page from search engines", however I am trying to speed up this process but also do this the best/correct way. I've read a lot about how we should build landing pages as a sub-directory, but one of the main issues we are dealing with is long page load time on https://example.com, so I wanted a kind of fresh start. I was thinking a potential solution to index these quickly/correctly was to make a redirect such as https://example.com/forward-1 -> https:sub.example.com/forward-1 then submit https://example.com/forward-1 to Search Console but I am not sure if that will even work. Another possible solution was to put some of the subdomain links accessed on the root domain say right on the pages or in the navigation. Also, will I definitely be hurt by 'starting over' with a new website? Even though my MozBar on my subdomain https://sub.example.com has the same domain authority (DA) as the root domain https://example.com? Recommendations and steps to be taken are welcome!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Markbwc0 -
The images on site are not found/indexed, it's been recommended we change their presentation to Google Bot - could this create a cloaking issue?
Hi We have an issue with images on our site not being found or indexed by Google. We have an image sitemap but the images are served on the Sitecore powered site within <divs>which Google can't read. The developers have suggested the below solution:</divs> Googlebot class="header-banner__image" _src="/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx"/>_Non Googlebot <noscript class="noscript-image"><br /></span></em><em><span><div role="img"<br /></span></em><em><span>aria-label="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada"<br /></span></em><em><span>title="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada"<br /></span></em><em><span>class="header-banner__image"<br /></span></em><em><span>style="background-image: url('/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx?mw=1024&hash=D65B0DE9B311166B0FB767201DAADA9A4ADA4AC4');"></div><br /></span></em><em><span></noscript> aria-label="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada" title="Arctic Safari Camp, Arctic Canada" class="header-banner__image image" data-src="/~/media/images/accommodation/arctic-canada/arctic-safari-camp/arctic-cafari-camp-david-briggs.ashx" data-max-width="1919" data-viewport="0.80" data-aspect="1.78" data-aspect-target="1.00" > Is this something that could be flagged as potential cloaking though, as we are effectively then showing code looking just for the user agent Googlebot?The devs have said that via their contacts Google has advised them that the original way we set up the site is the most efficient and considered way for the end user. However they have acknowledged the Googlebot software is not sophisticated enough to recognise this. Is the above solution the most suitable?Many thanksKate
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KateWaite0 -
Subdomain vs totally new domain
Problem: Our organization publish maps for public viewing using google maps. We are currently getting limited value from these links. We need to separate our public and private maps for infrastructure purposes, and are weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of separating by domain or sub domain with regards SEO and infrastructure. Current situation: maps.mycompany.com currently has a page authority of 30 and mycompany.com has a domain authority of 39. We are currently only getting links from 8 maps which are shared via social media whereas most people embed our maps on their website using an iframe which I believe doesn't do us any favour with SEO. We currently have approx 3K public maps. Question: What SEO impact can you see if we move our public maps from the subdomain maps.mycompany.com to mycompanypublicmaps.com? Thanks in advance for your help and happy to give more info if you need it!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eSpatial0 -
Subdomains + SEO
Hi everyone, So a little background - my company launched a new website (http://www.everyaction.com). The homepage is currently hosted on an amazon s3 bucket while the blog and landing pages are hosted within Hubspot. My question is - is that going to end up hurting our SEO in the long run? I've seen a much slower uptick in search engine traffic than I'm used to seeing when launching new sites and I'm wondering if that's because people are sharing the blog.everyaction.com url on social (which then wouldn't benefit just everyaction.com?) Anyways, a little help on what I should be considering when it comes to subdomains would be very helpful. Thanks, Devon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EveryActionHQ0 -
New Section On Site Worth It?
We have been kicking around this idea for a while now, and I wanted to get the communities honest opinion before we begin building it. So we create a lot of posts on social media showcasing articles we find on SEO, tips and tricks, reviews, etc. We were thinking rather than always linking out to the other sites, we are going to create a section on our site called "From Around The Web" and have brief breakdowns of what was covered, then provide a link to the full article. Most of these would be between 300-500 words, and be optimized around what we were linking to and writing about. So since the content would not be "in-depth" would this hurt us in any way? To me, it doesnt not make sense to send people to the other article right away, when we can summarize it and link to the full articles from our site. (Most people dont want to read a 3000 word article on SEO, especially small business owners who just want the breakdown) Thoughts? Think it will help, or not be useful enough to invest labor in?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | David-Kley0 -
Chinese Sites Linking With Bizarre Keywords Creating 404's
Just ran a link profile, and have noticed for the first time many spammy Chinese sites linking to my site with spammy keywords such as "Buy Nike" or "Get Viagra". Making matters worse, they're linking to pages that are creating 404's. Can anybody explain what's going on, and what I can do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alrockn0 -
What on-page/site optimization techniques can I utilize to improve this site (http://www.paradisus.com/)?
I use a Search Engine Spider Simulator to analyze the homepage and I think my client is using black hat tactics such as cloaking. Am I right? Any recommendations on to improve the top navigation under Resorts pull down. Each of the 6 resorts listed are all part of the Paradisus brand, but each resort has their own sub domain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0