Building a Large Local Services Directory - Subdomain Needed?
-
In 2012 we will be rolling out a directory of local services for our industry. This will ultimately be thousands of additional pages, with city/zip searching, individual provider pages etc.
The main reason is for UX -- providing local resources for our industry to compliment the online experience (we're an online B2C retailer)
My question is if there are pros/cons to putting this on a subdomain, or if having it on the root is ideal.
I don't see a huge influx of backlinks (making a sub fine) but I suppose that could change down the road. I do see some indexing benefits for new terms like 'service x in los angeles' etc, but that would also be fine on a sub.
It feels like it would be cleaner to keep separate and on a sub, but maybe we're missing something. We certainty don't want to hurt anything on our primary site which drives the business.
Thoughts?
-
To be honest you can run it off the sub folders on the website I have seen recently a big website which has a directory on it: http://marketing.com.au/
Also from a link juice point of view it would be better on the sub folder.
The issue is duplicant content from people copying other directories and placing the info direct on your site which can leave dup UGC.
If you website is established and already has ranks then I would go with the sub domain. you really need to put a internal case together and look at all options both positive and negative.
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
-
Reasonable Cost for Link Building Service
We need about 5-10 high quality links to our website created every month. We need the link targets researched and outreach done to these sites. The sites most be legitimate and high quality; decent domain authority, real sites, not phony low quality sites. Sites that would show traffic in similarweb.com with decent metrics. We absolutely want to avoid any link building schemes that could get us penalized. I have been told that such a project would take a qualified SEO about 8-10 hours per months (more during the additional month of research, less afterward). As such, what is a reasonable cost for these 5-10 links per month? $300, $500, $700, more? I only want to work with a highly experienced SEO, native english speaker with extensive experience. What is fair? I don't want to overpay or to under pay. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Content Marketing for Local Businesses
Hey guys! As someone who works with a number of local businesses (with localized target markets) I find that developing ideas for content marketing can be VERY difficult. I like the idea of creating local guides, local event info etc, but what other ways can we create content for a localized target market? For example: I have an OBGYN client that we'd love to create content for that is related to their niche (women's health), but don't want to promote or create content for national audience. That would seem incredibly wasteful. Would love to hear ideas on how to create targeted content for a local audience! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley0 -
Follow or nofollow to subdomain
Hi, I run a hotel booking site and the booking engine is setup on a subdomain.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vmotuz
The subdomain is disabled from being indexed in robots.txt Should the links from the main domain have a nofollow to the subdomain? What are you thoughts? Thanks!0 -
Subdomain for every us state?
Hi, one of our clients has an idea of making subdomains from his main website to sell his online advertisements in all states in USA. f.e: texas.web.com atlanta.web.com He wants to have a subdomain for every state and there to be information related only or mainly to this state? I am not sure about is this a good idea? What is your opinion about it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vladokan0 -
Will links to a subdomain help it rank?
I have an affiliate subdomain on a larger company's domain. (For example I have: www.victor.company.com on www.company.com). Would working to attain backlinks to the subdomain help it rank or will I just be putting forth my effort and helping the domain rank?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VictorVC0 -
Local Search without the user typing local?
Hi, I'm a somewhat regionally based voip provider for businesses. So I'm not interested in getting the #1 ranking for voip, but I'd like to get the top for my region. So in this case asheville voip and related searches. However, I know that alot of users in Asheville are not typing in Asheville voip when they google. They're just typing in voip or free voip, or cisco voip. Here's my Google Insight Search: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=voip&geo=US-NC&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q So what I was thinking about doing was in addition to my main site. Building several smaller 'educational based sites' about the benefits of VOIP. Based on google insights something like ashevillevoipphone.com. And use it to capture leads and link to my main site. So my question is this: Is this a good strategy? If people in Asheville are just typing in voip phone, will ashevillevoipphone.com automatically have a better chance at a higher ranking? Thanksd David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StraightRazorDesigns0 -
.htaccess - error404 redirect within a directory?
Hi, One of my clients has a CMS website offering Health and Safety training. When the courses have been run they automatically drop off of the system which is great for the front-end of the site but this leaves pile 404 errors for the URLs. I am trying to put a .htaccess redirect in place that will redirect back to the main category for that course i/e : http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA/27-nrswa-operative-sept-11.html will redirect to http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA I have spent a looooong time hitting google for a solution but can't seem to come up with anything. If at all possible I would also like to be able to post a php variable via the redirect url so that I can display a message on the category page saying that the course is no longer available be please select a different course. i/e: http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA?course=not-available Any help on this would be most gratefully received.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis0 -
One Website - Local + National Ranking
If a client (e.g. a winery) wants to rank both nationally and locally, what are some best practices for doing this on one Website? So the goal is to: Rank nationally for their wines, wine varietals, etc.so they're found by restaurants, distributors, customers (could include national directories, content creation ,etc.) Rank locally for their tasting room and wines for people looking locally or looking at that specific region (this could also include include Google places, local directories, etc.). I'm wondering if the site would need to be subdivided (or "siloed") where one section is heavily focused on national and another is on regional? Also, for the home page, which focus would be most important (maybe national because it's harder)? Thanks a for any ideas! Tom
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DirectionSEO0