Subdomains vs. Subfolders Inheriting Authority/Ranking Value
-
Our website is a continuing education website that is linked to a large university, and our URL is a subdomain of that larger university domain. We offer degrees as well, but because of the modifications we'd like to make to the degree webpages, our content management system won't let them be a part of our website.
Now we're trying to figure out if we should create a separate subdomain for all degrees, and put the individual degrees in separate folders (so, all degrees' URLs woudl be degrees.us.university.edu/degree-name/), or if we should give each its own URL, which would be completely separate from ours (degree urls would be degree-name.university.edu).
So our question is, how well do subdomains carry the value of the domain? Is it better to have twenty websites that are all separate subdomains of a strong domain, or one subdomain in a subdomain that houses all twenty websites in folders?
And, as a side note, will housing the degrees in degrees.us.university.edu pass value to us (us.university.edu)?
Thanks!
-
Hi Kristina - sorry for the long delay!
I definitely wouldn't go with sub.subdomain.rootdomain.edu - I'd go with a subfolder and hopefully, something as close to the root/main domain as possible.
-
Thanks, Rand - I wasn't able to find those articles on my own. They're really helpful.
I think one of the subtleties of our question is, is there a higher chance of gaining value from a strong root domain beause you're only one subdomain away? We're worried that, by creating subdomain.subdomain.root-domain.edu, we're completely losing any chance of value from our root domain.
-
I have a client with subdomains, and they seem to group together nicely, I do plent of closs linking, it helps that the content is relevant accross domains, but one thing I do is locate all the images and some js and css files on the root domain and link to them from the subdomains. now i have no evidence that this makes a diference besides my gut feeling, but i hope that Se's see this as one big site, i would if i was working at Bing or Google
-
I don't think you're gaining much with a complex subdomain play. My recommendation would be to use the usual format: domain.tld/geo/category/degree-name this format will provide clear URLs which are easy to understand by both search engines and users.
-
Hi Kristina - I actually wrote an in-depth post about this and did a whiteboard Friday on the topic:
- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-the-microsite-mistake
Basically, the answer is "sometimes" subdomains will be connected with the root domain and other subdomains in the eyes of the engines, but other times, this isn't the case.
In the specific one you're describing, my guess is that much of the root domain authority and ranking power will pass to the subdomain, so long as there are good links passing between the two (indicating a relationship, rather than a new, separate site).
best,
Rand
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
-
Htaccess redirect, from /year/month to /blog
I am trying to make some redirects so we don't lose that SEO juice. I am trying to move our blog structure from:
On-Page Optimization | | opiates
http://www.domain.com/2015/09/title-of-blog to:
http://www.domain.com/blog/title-of-blog I need to do redirects in htaccess from the old structure to the new structure but I can't seem to get it working properly. Here is what I have thus far. <code>RewriteEngine on RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^(.0-9)\/^(.0-9)\$ $1/ [R=301,L]</code> Any suggestions?0 -
Effecting Domain Authority
I've taking an old brochure website and done 61 Pages and 10 Post pages On-page SEO and my Domain Authority is still a '1.' I've used Low Difficulty Keywords and gotten Grade A in On-page Moz reports. We've even keyworded 400 images - Alt text. My competitors have done nothing and they have domain authority at least in the 40s...... Am I doing anything wrong?
On-Page Optimization | | Joseph.Lusso0 -
Microsoft SEO Toolkit vs MoZ
Hi MoZ Community, Does anybody know how well is Microsoft SEO Toolkit. As far i have noticed this tool reports around 20 violations under three broad areas like : SEO, Content and Performance. On many violations I have found MoZ to be silent like : 1-unnecessary redirects 2-Invalid mark ups 3-Missing Tag 4-like vilations and others Important is that it tells solutions as well against each violation on how to fix that. Any body can give insights while comparing it with MoZ. Tanveer
On-Page Optimization | | Sequelmed0 -
Ranking Fluctuations
I need your help. My rankings have been on a wild roller coaster ride since I started optimizing the site with standard on page optimization changes. (No keyword stuffing or over-optimization...) I have only made positive changes for the content on the page; I created unique descriptions for every product. I redirected some urls that weren’t readable into a more user- friendly format. I am only doing completely organic link building, really. Yet for some weird reason the rankings initially rose and then steeply fell and ever since have went back up to the top and right back to not in the top 50 results. Just to give you an example this is a graph of one of our main keywords: https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/gd2q This is another keyword that we admittedly never were in the top 5 results but usually we were in the top 20. Check out the wild fluctuations. If it wasn't the main keyword we were going after, I would probably laugh. https://www.diigo.com/item/image/3vpdp/rcy9 I asked an expert he said he think it might be from a major issue with internal competition. The keywords that seem to fluctuate the most, have numerous landing pages that compete for the same keyword. Since we sell the same object in many many different sizes, thicknesses and colors it only makes sense that we have the same keyword on many pages. I would love someone that is an expert in this area to have a look at the site and give actionable advice so I can stop the craziness. Do you have any suggestions? Do you have anyone that you’d refer for this type of job/consulting?
On-Page Optimization | | EcomLkwd0 -
Factors that Affect Alexa Ranking?
Hi All,
On-Page Optimization | | PrasanthMohanachandran
Can any one please help in the factors that effects Alexa ranking.
My website Alexa rank got increased at all of sudden. It was 600000 last month it got increased to 1000000 by today and i cant even find the rank in own country which was 22000 before. Please help me in this, my organic traffic and over all traffic is constant only, how ever my website got effected. Please suggest me on this0 -
Regarding Ranking.
Hi, Could anyone please advise me on how long would he take to get my website ranked in the top 3 results on first page on google. It's an university's website and close to no university's in Malaysia are doing SEO
On-Page Optimization | | navinan0 -
Duplicate content with a trailing slash /
Hi, I 've pages like this: A) www.example.com/file/ B) www.example.com/file Just two questions: Does Google see this as duplicate content? Best to 301 redirect B to A? Many thanks Richard PS I read previous threads re the subject, it sounded like there was a bug in SEOMoz but I was not absolutely clear. Apologies if this is going over old ground.
On-Page Optimization | | Richard5550 -
"And" vs "&"
I blog for hotels and I am wondering whether it is best to have on a wordpress tagline the name of the hotel such as Holiday Inn and Suites vs Holiday Inn & Suites. In Google AdWords, the "and" keyword always beats out the "&" word in exact search. The "&" just always looks cleaner. Also, when I refer to the hotel within a blog post, should I use the "and" or "&" in the name? Please help me understand which is best for seo. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | lwilkins0