Many clients have asked me about various technical SEO issues. These issues are related with domains, use of sub-domains, sub-directories, canonicalization, 301 redirects, 404 error pages, hyphen Vs. underscores in URLs, doorway pages any many others.
I want to discuss all these issues (in subsequent posts) with all of you to find out the best SEO practices in technical terms.
Today, I am discussing about one very common issue i.e. use of Sub-Domain or Sub-Directory.
Before going further I would like to define: Top Level Domain (TLD), Subdomain and Subdirectory.
Top Level Domain Name (TLDN): In www.google.com URL, com is the TLDN i.e. the last part of internet domain name (here, domain name is google.com). In case of www.google.co.uk your TLD would be uk. The uk domain is also referred to as a country-code top-level domain or ccTLD.
Subdomain: Subdomains are basically parts of the main domain. You can define it as a part of domain name hierarchy. For example:
In video.google.com, video is the subdomain.
Subdirectory: Subdirectories are basically defined as the folders in the root directory. For example: In http://desktop.google.com/plugins/ , plugins is the directory.
So, http://desktop.google.com/plugins/ in this URL:
Com is the TLD
Desktop is the subdomain
Plugins is the directory or subfolder
Now, we come to our main discussion i.e. why subdomains & why subdirectories?
Subdomains are used as separate domains by major search engines. See the results below for the search query seochat:
(You might know that Google shows 2 relevant results from a single domain)
Here, you can clearly view that Google is showing 2 results from forums.seochat.com/.
Subdomain should be used when your site is very large and you want to market some of your unique product or content thru different URL. For example: if your site has 1500 pages and you want to market your content/services/products thru different URLs with an appealing & relevant subdomain to popularize it, as in case of seochat. In forums.seochat.com; it is clearly understood that forums is a part of SEOchat which is used to discuss SEO related things.
So you can devise a subdomain strategy that would help focus certain areas of the site to help them market or compete individually.
For example:
Google uses many subdomains for its different product & services like maps.google.com/, video.google.com/, earth.google.com/ and many others.
Once any of your subdomains get enough link popularity, you can transfer it to other domains or main domain of your site to get them benefited by this.
Now, we will discuss directories. Directories are always the best choice for all as it has all the functionality & flexibility of subdomains and it is easy to manage. Subfolders are considered as the part of the domain as a whole. Search engines treat them as the content is coming from the same domain. But beware!! Don’t use lots of subdirectories in to directories because content that resides in subfolders is given a lower priority that content that resides in the root of a website. The deeper down in subfolders e.g. ‘example.com/google/website/seo/link/oneway/…’ that content resides the lower priority it gets from the major search engines. Do not go deeper than 1 or 2 sub folder from the root folder of your website.
This is according to my experience so far; however you might know something else which I did not mention or you feel should be included, so have your saying by leaving the comment. Even your opinion is also welcome. I will appreciate your response as this will also help others to solve their SEO dilemmas.
uohaa said
Great Information blog ! Thank you for keeping up the good work. I look forward to returning to your blog, and learning more from you !
http://www.uoha.com
Steve said
Great post – thanks!
I have bought a new domain to serve a particular niche – lets call it newsite.com
The idea is to have multiple products relating the the TLD ie build.newsite.com, polish.newsite.com and market.newsite.com
Each will have very different content but will use almost the same sub-directories
build.newsite.com/how-to, polish.newsite.com/how-to and market.newsite.com/how-to
Now I am at ends as to whether use subdomains OR sub-directories. If i opted for the later that would be newsite.com/build/how-to and so on.
And according to you your opinion “dont go deeper than 1 or 2 sub folder”
So what are the views of this blog readers? Would subdomains be the way forward for completely different products (but ALL relative to the TLD), considering its such a new domain?
Sorry for the lengthy comment – i just seem to be going round in circles
Steve
Dave said
If the priority is lower for directories, what are the benefits of having directories? Wouldn’t it be beneficial to just put everything in root?
seotech said
Hi Dave,
It’s not bad to put content in to subdirectories. My point is- don’t be too much deeper up to too many levels like /dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/page.html, because search engines can overlook these pages.
If your website is big (with many pages & varied information or data) then you should use subdirectories. If you are running more complex sites, expanding, or utilizing more than one application, you can use sub-directories and then make it look as if it’s in the root. This makes it much easier to keep things compartmentalized and reduces the chances of accidentally overwriting some important file. It will also helpful to keep your root directory clean. It will be easy to manage a folder rather than messing it up with the other root files.
Hope this resolve your query!
awoo23 said
Does anybody know of a free blogging engine that lets you use subdirectories?
Blogger and WordPress only allow subdomains.
Andrew
http://www.gotogroupbuy.com
Johan said
Thank you for an intresting article!
I have a question regarding this topic!
Let´s say that you are about to start a selling and market stuff on the internet. One way could be to setup sites like:
http://www.usedcars.com
http://www.redflowers.com
http://www.computersupport.com
The idea is to set up sites that use relevant search words in the TLDN because as I understand search engines prioritize these addresses together with other parameters.
Or you could set up one site with subfolders according to:
http://www.onesite.com/usedcars
http://www.onesite.com/redflowers
http://www.onesite.com/computersupport
To market one site is easier than market multiple sites and all the inbound links would go to one site making it higher prioritized. But how do search engines treat subfolders probably not as important as the TLDN?
The third option would be to set up both individual sites and one central site and making a 301 redirect to the central site. By this approach the users can type in http://www.usedcars.com because it is easier to remember than http://www.onesite.com/usedcars. But what will happen if a user search for usedcars.com in a search engine what URL will show up?
Please can you analyze the situation?
seotech said
Hi Johan,
Here is the answer for your query…(as per my understanding):
Here you are taking about 3 entirely different business lines via
http://www.usedcars.com
http://www.redflowers.com
http://www.computersupport.com
in this case i will advice you to go for either individual site for each business or create sub domains instead of subfolders or sub directories. because if these are e-commerce sites then it would be tough for you to manage the subfolders. Sub folders can be a better option if your business line is same & site is not too large.
But here as you are talking about three different products then subdomains can be a good option for you, as they will be treated differently by SEs & you can easily manage them.
In long run you can get the benefit of your domain PR on sub-domains also.
I hope this will help you in your decision making.
For more queries you can contact me on my gmail ID at anshu.seo@gmail.com
Uday Gupta said
I want to know technically which is fast? Subdomain or sub directory?
Thanks in advance
wq said
Nice info. What would be the rule of thumb on the minimum no. of pages per subdomain?