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Should My Blog Go On a Sub-domain or a Sub-directory?

Should My Blog Go On a Sub-domain or a Sub-directory?

So you’re considering adding a blog to your website. That’s great! But hold on a second. Where you put that blog can have an impact on search engines and how they view all that great, new content you’re providing them. When you or your developers are building the blog, more often than not, this question comes up:

“Should we put the blog on www.companyname.com/blog or blog.companyname.com?”

Putting the blog at “companyname.com/blog” would be classified as using the “subdirectory” and the “blog.companyname.com” format would be “using a sub-domain.” When you replace the “www” in your site with something else, you’re adding a sub-domain.

So where should this blog go? I’m here to give you what I believe is the answer and why.

Put it on a subdirectory
Sorry if that was anti-climactic but, for 99% of the cases, that’s the answer to the “where” question. I highly recommend, where possible, to use the “companyname.com/blog” location.  Sometimes, there’s just no way around using the sub-domain. For example, you might be using some free blog platform and they only allow use of the sub-domain. However, if you have any control over this whatsoever, put the blog in a subdirectory.

Why the Subdirectory? Links and Link Profile
One of the reasons SEO consultants recommend creating a blog in the first place is the ability for that content to generate links back to the website. Blog content is fresh, shareable and can generate discussion. Links are essentially “votes” that carry a lot of weight for search engines so site owners definitely want to obtain as many quality back-links as possible.

In the eyes of the search engines, your “link profile” is essentially the collection of links that are pointing to a website. How many sites and what kinds of sites that are linking to the site build a link profile which says a lot about that site’s overall trustworthiness and authority to the search engines. Now, here is where the “why” really becomes apparent…

Search engines tend to view sub-domains as separate sites from the main, “www” domain. This means blog.companyname.com and www.company.com are seen as different sites. Therefore, any links that point back to the blog on the sub-domain wouldn’t count toward your main “www” domain. Remember, “www” is your main site. You should want that domain to receive that build-up of inbound links and the improved link profile.

I hope this helps clear up one of the more common questions I see out there. Feel free to leave your comments and questions below. I’ll be happy to answer them all!

ps - now you can follow me on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Kenny-Shafer and on Twitter: http://twitter.com/knit_hat!

(republished from http://www.apartments.com/blog/tips-and-advice/sub-domain-or-subdirectory-where-to-put-that-blog/)

 
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

Great blog as usual, Ken. I tried a third choice recently, which may have been a mistake, but is working out with mixed results. I created a blog separate from ResidentEvents.com using a different domain name entirely, in order to capture different keywords, and then draw people back to ResidentEvents.com in a natural, organic way. Now, both sites have begun rating well in Yahoo and Bing, although Google seems to possibly see the blog as an extension of the main site, and has dropped it from its rankings. Interesting experiment...

  Brent Williams
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

Thanks, Brent! Interesting indeed!

Here's my take on your experiment. It's very likely that you've set up both domains under the same hosting package...which means it's very likely that the domains are on the same IP block. I wouldn't be able to verify this without knowing both domains, but it's very possible this is the case.

Like you said, Google probably does see the blog as an "extension" and here's why:

1) Both sites are on the same IP block indicating that they have one owner
2) The content for both sites is somewhat related

Essentially, this is a safeguard for Google to stop people from setting up crazy networks of URLs, creating a bogus link network, and ultimately gaming a site's link profile. They essentially devalue the link "juice" being passed between the different sites.

Very interesting about Bing/Yahoo (although they should be the same since there's now only one set of search results for both sites). It could be that Bing isn't quite as sophisticated as Google, or just a bit more forgiving...or a combination of both

  Ken Shafer
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

Actually, I foresaw that being an issue and it is separately hosted, although with the same company. I suppose it is possible it randomly was put on the same server, but I think that is pretty doubtful. As for Yahoo/Bing, they do use the same search results, but I believe one of them has an additional algorithm as the results are usually similar but slightly different (i.e., ranked #3 versus #4). And they seem to be much more focused on content and domain name compared to Google with linkjuice. I could be wrong about that though...

  Brent Williams
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

Curiouser and Curiouser...

I think I still would have to recommend against starting it up on a separate domain, be it a sub-domain or a separate URL. Basically, any link juice that goes to that site isn't being attributed to whatever the core site may be. Plus, that new URL is starting from scratch, SEO-wise. Whereas, putting it on the core URL at least takes advantage of that domain's existing age and authority.

Thanks again Brent!

  Ken Shafer
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

I think a lot of it has to do with the core keywords you are trying to obtain. If the keywords have little competition, you have a greater chance to succeeding with both, and controlling more of the top 10 that way... But you are definitely right about starting it from scratch - my situation had two new websites, which means that neither of them had good PR.

Great discussion!

  Brent Williams

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