Subdomain blog vs. subfolder blog in 2013.
-
Having read this ( http://www.seomoz.org/q/blog-on-a-subdomain-vs-subfolder ) & countless of blog posts on never to put your blog on a domain because a subdomain is treated as a different site & your blog traffic won't help with your main sites authority. I've always pushed for subfolder blogs.
However I've been seeing a lot of blogs now and days saying that Google is now treating subdomains as the same site as your main site.
ETC...
What does everyone think? Is it acceptable to have a blog in a subdomain in 2013?
Thanks!
-
Have to agree with Takeshi. In my experience, even still in 2013, having a blog on a subdomain gives you all of the disadvantages of it being a separate site while achieving none of the advantages.
If the blog's topics are directly related to the primary topics of the website itself, put it in a subdirectory - save yourself all kinds of hassle while letting your main site authority help your blog, and vice versa.
Paul
[Updated to note: those two articles you mention are referring to very specific elements of subdomains and subdirectories. Namely that geo-targeting is equally effective whether you're using a subdomain or subdirectory, that specifically within Webmaster Tools, links between subdomains and primary domains will be considered internal for reporting purposes, and that subdomains are no longer considered "seperate" sites when it comes to trying to get your site/subdomain to show multiple times in a SERP.. These should in no way be considered general claims that subdomains and subdirectories perform similarly in all other aspects]
-
In my experience, Google still treats subdomains as separate sites in many respects (I work for a large ecommerce site with 30 different subdomains). It's also how large webhosts like wordpress.com & tumblr.com can get away with having so many people creating poor content without being penalized-- each subdomain is treated as a separate site.
If you want your site to get SEO benefit from your blog (and vice versa), I would stick to subdirectories. Why take the chance on a subdomain? They certainly don't provide any benefits above and beyond a subdirectory.
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
-
Pillar pages and blog pages
Hello, I was watching this video about pillar pages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db3TpDZf_to and tried to apply it to my self but find it impossible to do (but maybe I am looking at it the wrong way). Let's say I want to rank on "Normandy bike tou"r. I created a pillar page about "Normandy bike tour" what would be the topics of the subpages boosting that pillar page. I know that it should be questions people have but in the tourism industry they don't have any, they just want us to make them dream !! I though about doing more general blog pages about things such as : Places to rent a bike in Normandy or in XYZ city ? ( related to biking) Or the landing sites in Normandy ? (not related to biking) Is it the way to do it, what do you recommend ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
ExampleSite.com vs ExampleSite.com.br
What would you say to a client who is concerned he'd have to run around buying his .com.??? in alot of other countries. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Should I write a new page or a blog post?
I am trying to rank for a local SEO term on a website for a national company. Should I write an optimized blog post, or optimized site page? Does it make a difference? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | aj6130 -
Blog Content Displayed on Multiple Pages
We are developing an online guide that will provide information and listing for a few different cities in Canada and the US. We have blog content that will be pulled into each different city's blog articles page. Some articles are location agnostic and can be displayed for any city, and other articles will only be city specific, and only appear under a particular city. www.mysite.com//blog/seattle/article1
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EBKMarketing
www.mysite.com/blog/portland/article1 From what I know of SEO, it seems that this is a perfect example for the use of canonicalization. So for article that will appear in multiple city guides, should there be a tag that points to a home for that article www.mysite.com/blog/article1 Thanks0 -
Sidewide footer links to latest blog posts
Dear Friends I hope you can answer my questions. We are launching a new site and on the footer (sidewide) we list all new blog posts (limit 5 links - blog title), do you think we have any problems with that part of the website? I am concerned because all new blog post title will appear on all pages' footer and it will be marked as spammed. We just want visitors to be noticed about new blogs post on our site. Thank you,Tran
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveTran20130 -
On Page vs Off Page - Which Has a Greater Effect on Rankings?
Hi Mozzers, My site will be migrating to a new domain soon, and I am not sure how to spend my time. Should I be optimizing our content for keywords, improving internal linking, and writing new content - or should I be doing link building for our current domain (or the new one)? Is there a certain ratio that determines rankings which can help me prioritize these to-dos?, such as 70:30 in favor of link-building? Thanks for any help you can offer!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Directory VS Article Directory
Which got hit harder in penguin update. I was looking at SEER Interactive backlink profile (the SEO company that didn't rank for it's main keyword phrases) and noticed a pretty big trend on why it might not rank for its domain name. SEER was in a majority of anchor text, many coming from directories. i'm guessing THEY were effected because they matched the exact match domain link profile rule I'm not an expert programmer, but if i was playing "Google Programmer" I would think the Algo update went something like. If ((exact match domain) & (certain % anchor text==domain) & (certain % of anchor text== partial domain + services/company)) { tank the rankings } So back to the question, do you think that this update had a lot to do with directories, article directories, or neither. Is article directories still a legit way to get links. (not ezine)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imageworks-2612900 -
Blog Subscribers Count Tool
So, I have about 100 different blogs that I am starting to organize into a list of potential guest blog opportunities. I wanted to see how many subscribers each blog had to their site to better help identify the top influential blogs. The only way I know how to do this is to search for the site inside of Google reader. I was wondering if anybody knows of a tool or knows a way to scrape the blog subscriber count from Google docs, or something more scalable. Thanks, Jason
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jason_3420