The main purpose of subdomains is to expand a website or translate it into another language. It is easier and more profitable to create a subdomain than to register a new domain. Note that in most cases the subdomain content is being stored in a separate server location. This may be inconvenient for website administration. Do subdomains hurt SEO? There are many examples online when moving a website to subdomain caused it to lose its SEO ranking.
Timo says they made this decision after much discussion and research. In their opinion, Google SEO bots should be smart enough so that the website structure would not impact the search results. Matt Cutts, former head of Google webspam, also talked about this. According to Matt, the only question is what structure a web designer prefers.
You should choose the one that is most suitable, and it should not seriously affect website traffic. However, sometime after moving to a subdomain, Timo Reitnauer noted there was no positive dynamics in SEO ranking. The number of pageviews dropped the very next month after the move. This trend continued in the following months. Timo demonstrates a graph of blog page views before and after moving to a subdomain:. As you can see, the pageviews dropped almost by half.
Reitnauer clarifies that switching was made by all rules, including st redirec t for all URLs within the site. After a while, iwantmyname. What is a subfolder or subdirectory? In terms of website structure, subdirectories are more convenient and intuitive to use. A path to a website subfolder within a domain is similar to a path in the file system. Each directory name is separated from the previous one by a forward slash.
Unlike subdomains, the contents of subdirectories are stored in an individual server partition. One content management system is enough for administrating subfolders.
The infographic below shows the differences between subfolders and subdomains. To have an adequate website structure, we need to analyze the process of website ranking by SEO bots. According to Mueller, the difference between subdomains vs. They use identical ranking factors and algorithms both for subdomains and subfolders. Since subfolders are a part of the main website, search bots attribute them to the respective domain. In the process of website SEO, this gives us certain advantages when working with external links and developing link weight.
For instance, the weight of the link to any main domain page is distributed inside the main website by internal linking. This has a positive effect on SEO promotion. When choosing a subdomain structure for your website, keep in mind that the weight of external links is distributed only within the individual subdomain. Its promotion will not affect the main domain. This entails separate allocation of additional resources for external links for each website subdomain. Subdirectories provide a number of significant advantages:.
Moreover, subfolders allow maintaining the weight of external links within one domain name. This is an important factor that determines the website ranking in search results. Despite what Google representatives say, Rand Fishkin, Moz co-founder, marketing star and SEO expert himself, also spoke in favor of subfolders in the site structure. Also, Fishkin gave a few references to well-known web sources discussing this topic.
According to Fishkin, Google employees may make any statements but turned out to be wrong in this regard. It is known that the weight of external links to a given website page significantly affects its SEO promotion. What is the best option for search engine optimization? Post content on two different subdomains that thousands of websites link to? Or, place all content on one domain with two thousand backlinks? For experienced SEOptimizers, the answer to this question is obvious.
In the first case, you will need to redouble efforts and financial costs to bring subdomains in the TOP search results. The second option to solve this task two times faster and cheaper. Of course, this example is relative, since the search ranking depends on the quality of incoming links. These two sites are seen as separate entities to Google. There are links between them, but for SEO, their backlink profiles are considered separate for the most part.
In your domain's DNS settings, you can setup different sudomains with A records to point to difference servers. Choose the subdomain you want to setup and the IP to point it to.
Subdirectories are another way of organizing that helps to consolidate different sites onto one domain. Also called subfolders, subdirectories organize sites and their pages into a directory of folders, like files on a computer. An example of a subdirectory URL is callrail.
Subdirectories might require additional setup work to point different folders at different servers. The system you use for your site depends on you and your business. Generally, subdomains are ideal for larger businesses with multiple sizable entities, while subdirectories are a better approach for small business owners who want to ensure all SEO efforts are concentrated on one domain.
Do search engines favor one option over the other, though? That said, some site owners have reported that a simple change of subdomain to subfolder, can result in a traffic increase.
Mueller says there could be situations where the search engine treats certain pages differently, even though it sees both setups as equal. For example, is a page a part of a larger site or a site on its own? In other words, the best structure for your site will depend on the structure of your business or businesses. Subdirectories are usually the best choice for a reason: a subdirectory setup consolidates all SEO efforts to one domain.
Google usually treats each site in a subdomain-organized site, as a separate entity. This can dillute some link value. If a site makes a list of the ten best companies in your industry and backlinks to a blog post on your website at blog.
Consolidating relevant subdomains into a subdirectory setup will consolidate the backlink profiles. Each site adds authority to the whole website—potentially boosting your rankings. If your business is on the larger side, and you have the time and staff to maintain several different properties, then you might want to opt for a subdomain approach. Subdomains are perfect a large brands that has separate, unique entities. Subdomains are preferable if a brand has several large, distinct entities that need their own websites.
Disney, for example, uses subdomains for its parks, video, and other properties to maintain them as separate entities. If your brand is organized around topics big enough to warrant their own domains, they might be strong enough to stand on their own individual backlink profiles. Combining such domains into a subdirectory setup would likely only sacrifice link equity due to changing every URL.
Prominent, robust interlinking between your subdomains is essential to spreading out link value evenly. Links should be relevant, find ways to cross link that are helpful to a user. Subdomain setup for different sites or applications is quite a lot simpler, because each subdomain you setup can point to a different server address. When you want to have an entirely different application or CMS setup on a folder, it gets a little more advanced. The website or blog is a virtual property , just like a store, and it needs an address to be found.
After choosing the domain, you can register it with the provider — a company that works as a representative of ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — the organization that manages the domain naming system. Usually, you have to pay to obtain that address. The domain will always direct to your website. However, there are stationary domains to ensure that visitors can find your website, even after entering the wrong URL. These domains are duplicated with different extensions and direct the user to the right address.
For example, if the main domain is www. This link directs the user to the main domain. This way, the same experience is provided to the user, that is, they do not even notice they have been redirected.
This strategy allows your page to have a unique name and be found by search engines in different circumstances : through main and stationary domains. Subdomains are easier to understand. Expanding on what we learn at school, the sub is actually a prefix that means below. In fact, it means that the subdomain is a set of the domain. That is: the domain is divided into smaller parts, called subdomains. They target the website in more specific areas, such as contact page, support area, blog, etc.
If you have a website www. The subdomain could be www. The main advantage of the subdomain is its independence from the main website. This gives you the autonomy to edit web design elements and develop specific approaches in order to achieve multiple rankings. Finally, we have subdirectories, which are folders within the main domain, that is, categories within the website.
In the URL address, the category is positioned after the domain and extensions and is preceded by a slash symbol, as in the examples below:. Therefore, if the website already has a robust structure, the subdirectory will also have backlinks , traffic, and authority.
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