Does using a sub-domain lessen the effectiveness of your main domain?
-
For example a website without a blog and is a simple html site with no blogging capabilities. We go out to Blogger or Wordpress and set up the blog portion of the website using something like blog.yourdomain.com. Does this make a difference SEO wise? Is is more effective to be sure that you are using the main domain and not a sub-domain? I have heard both sides before but can't seem to find the concrete answer. Thanks for any advise out there.
-
Actually it's a bit more complex than Rafi explains.
If the main site is an ecommerce site (sells products), it's okay to have the blog on the main site unless you end up with a high volume of content on the blog that can weaken the "purchase" intent of the main site. In that case, the blog on a sub-domain is actually somewhat better because it separates the "informational" intent out and can in turn build up a stronger authority signal as "informational" as a sub-domain. But only if you drive a lot of traffic, engagement and links to the sub-domain.
If the topic is isolated to a niche topic not generally strong on the main site, that's another valuable reason for the sub-domain path. Again, by isolating it within a sub-domain you're preventing dilution of the topical focus of the main site. That also applies if you have products or services that you can build up enough content within that niche to justify an entire sub-domain.
If the main site is informational and the blog is informational, and there is a lot of cross-topical relationshps, it's best to keep the blog as a folder/directory within the main site - in this scenario you get more value by going this route because of the commonality of intent and topical focus.
-
Hi there,
Nothing makes a difference from an SEO standpoint unless you have good content in it. So, if you host a blog on your domain with good and relevant content that complements or goes hand-in-hand with your domain's theme or line of business, it would definitely add up to the strength of your domain overall going forward. Though its a sub-domain, treat it such that it is an entirely different domain, optimize it the way you would do any other domain. Personally, I would host the blog on my domain itself so that I don't run in to the weird world of cross linking problems especially when its hosted on the same IP address that my domain is hosted on. So if its a business need to have your blog separately, its better to go with a dedicated IP and also make sure it belongs to a different class C IP. We faced issues related to cross linking no matter how clean we tried to maintain them both. Please note that this is purely out of my experience.
Best regards,
Devanur Rafi.
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
-
Launching Brand New Subdomain To Outrank & Outperform Main Domain
Fellow Mozzers! I have a tricky problem that may or may not have a viable solution. It's one that our team are 100% pressing ahead with regardless & I wanted to canvass some opinion on what options I have. We have the Main Company Site which has been going for +15 years, has a DA of 58 and 63,000 links pointing at it. It currently ranks on page 1 for a number of our important keywords. However.... We are now launching a Subdomain, which will be something like marketing.maincompanysite.com which we now want to drive a lot more of our traffic to. In particular for items like new customer acquisition, product discovery etc. In fact we would actually rather the subdomain outrank our main site for branded queries. However the Main Site is still important for existing customers who login to our product and we don't want to do anything that will destabilize it's rankings too much. My questions are: Are there any strategies I can use to get a subdomain (with no links or history) outranking the main site in position 1 on Google? Main site should still rank in position 2! Any other tips to actively take legacy traffic from a main site onto a subdomain seamlessly. Should we just be 301 redirecting unnecessary pages on the old site to new and improved pages on the subdomain? There will still be a 100,000+ pages on the main site, lots of authority and traffic going through it. It's not becoming redundant. Thanks so much guys - hopefully I've explained that okay!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MattStott40 -
Preserve domain on 301 redirect?
We have a domain solely used for print advertising that does a 301 redirect to a landing page (a department home page) on our "real" domain that is indexed on Google. Example: www.bmwrepairs.com redirects to www.repairshop.com/bmwrepairs. Is there a way to do a 301 redirect so that when they get redirected, the URL in the browser address bar remains www.bmwrepairs.com?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jazee1 -
How to switch brand domain and address previous use of domain
We recently acquired a new domain to replace existing as it better fits our brand. We have little/no organic value on existing domain so switching is not an issue. However the newly acquired domain was previously used in a different industry and has inbound links with significant spam scores. How can we let Google know that these links are not valid for our business and start rebuilding reputation of the domain? Disavow tool?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Marlette0 -
Use of subdomains, subdirectories or both?
Hello, i would like your advice on a dilemma i am facing. I am working a new project that is going to release soon, thats a network of users with personal profiles seperated in categories for example lets say the categories are colors. So let say i am a member and i belong in red color categorie and i got a page where i update my personal information/cv/resume as well as a personal blog thats on that page. So the main site is giving the option to user to search for members by the criteria of color. My first idea is that all users should own a subdomain (and this is how its developed so far) thats easy to use and since the domain name is really small (just 3 letters) i believe subdomain worth since personal site will be easy to remember. My dilemma is should all users own a subdomain, a subdirectory or both and if both witch one should be the canonical? Since it said that search engines treat subdomains as different stand-alone sites, whats best for the main site? to show multiple search results with profiles in subdomains or subdirectories? What if i use both? meaning in search results i use search directory url for each profile while same time each profile owns a subdomains as well? and if so which one should be the canonical? Thanks in advance, C
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HaCos0 -
Meta Keywords: Should we use them or not?
I am working through our site and see that meta keywords are being used heavily and unnecessarily. Each of our info pages will have 2 or 3 keyword phrases built into them. Should we just duplicate the keyword phrases into the meta keyword field, should put in additional keywords beyond or not use it at all? Thoughts and opinions appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus1 -
Virtual Domains and Duplicate Content
So I work for an organization that uses virtual domains. Basically, we have all our sites on one domain and then these sites can also be shown at a different URL. Example: sub.agencysite.com/store sub.brandsite.com/store Now the problem comes up often when we move the site to a brand's URL versus hosting the site on our URL, we end up with duplicate content. Now for god knows what damn reason, I currently cannot get my dev team to implement 301's but they will implement 302's. (Dont ask) I also am left with not being able to change the robots.txt file for our site. They say if we allowed people to go in a change this stuff it would be too messy and somebody would accidentally block a site that was not supposed to be blocked on our domain. (We are apparently incapable toddlers) Now I have an old site, sub.agencysite.com/store ranking for my terms while the new site is not showing up. So I am left with this question: If I want to get the new site ranking what is the best methodology? I am thinking of doing a 1:1 mapping of all pages and set up 302 redirects from the old to the new and then making the canonical tags on the old to reflect the new. My only thing here is how will Google actually view this setup? I mean on one hand I am saying
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DRSearchEngOpt
"Hey, Googs, this is just a temp thing." and on the other I am saying "Hey, Googs, give all the weight to this page, got it? Graci!" So with my limited abilities, can anybody provide me a best case scenario?0 -
Which domain should I use?
I own a couple domains that are specific to a product and would like to know which one folks on here recommend. Primary Google Search Term Example: "Tax Bond" Example Domain 1: www.taxbonds.net Example Domain 2: www.tax-bond.net I've done research on here before and have come to the conclusion that hyphenated domains aren't bad (no more than 2 hyphens though). So, do I go for the EXACT search term with the hyphen or do I go for the pluralized search term without the hyphen, even though most people will not add the "s" in the Google search? Thanks, Alex
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbuckles0 -
Penalty for using expired domain?
I was wondering if anyone has any experience using dropped/expired domains with old "clean" backlinks for new sites. Is there be a penalty for doing this (with good intent)? Worth a reconsideration request?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EdgySEO0