Subdomains VS Folders
A question that comes across my desk a lot is “Should I use Subdomains or Folders?”
The Answer has 2 parts, do you want 1 Dominant Domain or Several Domains!
Google, Yahoo and MSN all treat Subdomains as separate websites, so to gain ranking for each subdomain is just as difficult as gaining ranking for several different domain names.
You can look at this different ways. So lets say you have a website that has 3 different areas, the website, the blog for the website and a forum area.
Under 1 domain with several Folders you could use www.mysite.com, www.mysite.com/blog, www.mysite.com/forums and have 1 Super Uber Authoritive Domain!
Using Subdomains you could use www.mysite.com, blog.mysite.com, forums.mysite.com and have 3 times the work but 3 times the benefit!
Here is the straight shot from my thought process. If your trying to do something on a limited budget and don’t have a lot of time use the folder option as this will give you the best benefit in the shortest period of time. From a Search Engine Optimization point of view all links going into the 1 domain name will benefit across the entire site.
If your looking to build something that has more emphasis on a part of the site, example you think or know that your forums will take a strong position first or your interested in building each part of the website piece by piece and have the money and time to spend on each part of your site, you could do better using subdomains and have 3 powerful parts of 1 domain!
Either way it’s a decision you need to make before diving into your endeavor, you don’t want to start with folders and end up with subdomains or vice versa because one way or another you will be doing double work!
Whatever you decide think long and hard, make a decision and go full steam ahead!
I think that will not be a big issue because we can use 301 redirect if you want to change from subdomain to folder or folder to subdomain.
I like everything on the standard domain, and then the blog on a subdomain. I have always pictured blogs as their own site, even if it is related. Blogs are updated sometimes more often than the site, so usually they can even be considered their own site.
When I can, I try to meld the designs together so the user never knows they switched from the site to the blog subdomain, other than that they clicked a link. You can see my site for what I mean.
As far as lots of subdomains, I feel that would be a dumb idea when you can rather have one authority domain which would rank pages in search engines easier. Just my 2 cents.
[...] Search Engine Marketing addresses a question asked by all webmasters at one time or another… subdomains or folders? [...]
[...] Subdomains VS Folders [...]
I use them both, but for some of my domains I’m forced to use only subdomains because I have it as an add-on domain…
anyway – I think the content is VERY important first of all – if you have a bad content – you may get big problems with both of them…
ps: for me better are the SUBdomains…
If I should create a different section for my site, I would definitely create subdomains because Google sees them as different sites.
With this you can conquer the SERPs by filling up the 1-5 spots. haha!
Well said, subdomains should be used for big website where there is a really need and enough content to afford those subdomain, for small to medium website folders are better especially if they have trusted domain and low budget so they can enjoy instant free search engines traffic for those directories.
[...] Subdomains VS Folders (Darin Carter) [...]
There is another matter should you use dashes or not in your name? For folders it is clear dashes are the way to go but subdomains are little trickier. Luckily you can use a Google Did you mean? trick http://netvestor.blogspot.com/2007/11/trick-when-choosing-subdomain-name-dash.html
Which is better for google ranking in search engine (not pagerank) ? Subdomain or folder?
Thanks for this, I always wondered which type I should use.
For my little niche sites I was using subdomains, but now I realize that I probably should have used folders as their SE rankings would have been better. Oh well.
I stumbled this post by the way.
Cheers
Eric from Wheels and Wood
Wheels and Woods last blog post..Re: Game: Picture War
I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years and folders have ALWAYS been better for me than subdomains. I have seen people take advantage of rankings in the past by using domains, but I think those holes have been closed up.
Yeah I agree. I have always used folders, and from time to time uses sub domains.
It all depends, If the site wants just a good rankings for the main site which does the real business and having subdomains for blogs and forums which play the role of support then I don’t think they’ll put much effort into them. But once again, it all is upto each and every company and individual how they want to shape up their business and site on the Internet. I would prefer going with folders though.
You also need to remember that in terms of SEO a flat architecture is better – so limiting the use of sub folders.
With each sub folder the page is based within, you generally loose one PageRank score – so keeping it all as flat as possible it best.
I prefer folder option because it is more easy to build the rank as I don’t have to maintain each of the sub domain.
I prefer subdomains. this is great strategy.