Your Blog’s Domain: Independent, Folder or Subdomain?
“…there’s very rarely a “this is ALWAYS better than that” in the field of SEO.”, RandFish SEOmoz
When adding a business blog to your marketing arsenal, there’s much to think about. Particularly if you’re a small to medium sized business owner already committed to a great website.
Three choices ‘committed website owners’ typically have include:
1. Existing Domain with folder: widgets.com/blog
2. Subdomain of Existing Domain: blog.widgets.com
3. Separate Domain: widgetmania.com
No one scenario is necessarily better than the other. The way Google uses its’ ranking algorithm to compare competitive pages on the web is incredibly complex, mostly unknown, always changing and a lot more involved than just a domain. Sure your choice of domain can matter and having a key phrase domain can be advantageous, but above all things Google favors good consistent content! And always remember, search isn’t everything. Good blogs should be about building an online presence that demonstrates your value to humans, regardless of how they find you.
Hypothetical Independent, Folder or Subdomain questions and answers:
- Google has over 200 signals that it uses to compare competitive web pages. They change or re- weight those signals almost every day. One must always take this into consideration when trying to understand why their rank for a page is or is not up to expectations. It is never just the domain choice.
- As it stood, a subdomain strategy could offer some great external links to website content making a subdomain potentially advantageous versus a folder. Subdomain blogs were considered a separate entity in Google search results; however, recent updates suggest Google and other search engines generally will no longer list more than two [related domain and subdomain] pages in the top ten search results. The update supposedly treats links from a subdomain as internal links, as opposed to external. You should know that, while good external links are highly valued, good internal links are of high value as well. Ultimately, the point is that when it comes to creating your own external [or backlinks] neither folder nor subdomain necessarily offers any advantage.
- The above point assumes that if the subdomain and main domain are hosted in the same place the links between the two will be weighted as internal links; however, recent research suggests that if the subdomain is hosted separately from the parent domain, the links may still be weighted as external. This makes the subdomain strategy potentially advantageous over folder. We host many client blogs and, assuming they tend to proper content creation, there is a great deal of proof for this.
- Regarding the ‘two page limit’ and per Matt Cutts point, “if a particular domain is really relevant, we may still return several results from that domain [meaning including domains and subdomains].” So, it’s really just more difficult than it was for multiple subdomains to rank in a set of top 10 results. It is not impossible.
- There’s a lot of rhetoric concerning the proper strategy, but little to worry about for the small to medium sized business. Sure, the ranking algorithm has been tweaked so that multiple pages from multiple subdomains [blog.widgets.com versus widgets.com] have a higher bar to clear. But if the goal is to be there it may be best to think in terms of ‘a web presence’ and how it works for you as a whole.
Q: Are any of the three a better way to get more pages into the SERPs?
A: Considering the recent algorithm update mentioned above, possibly motivated by subdomain backlink abuse, it appears NOW a leading strategy may be to have a separate independent domain; however, a new independent blog domain inherits none of the trust, authority or ranking power for its’ new pages that search engines may have otherwise passed to a subdomain or folder. If the blog’s content will be much different than the primary websites’ [i.e news.google.com, googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com versus google.com] content overlap won’t be a concern anyway and the folder or subdomain will be great. Google wants to limit any one businesses’ ability to get more than two results on page one of a high volume search. Simply put, it limits choice for their search consumer. If you’re determined to have more than two pages in the top 10 search results for a query, which is very difficult and never guaranteed, consider a separate domain.
Also and per the above, know that hosting a subdomain separately from the primary domain [see above] also seems to make the index limits concern go away.
Above all, good consistent content should always be the focus.
Q: Should I manage my own blog?
A: If you’re a ‘do it yourselfer’, managing a blog can be a way to go; however, know that it’s a challenge for even the most self sufficient business person. Just securing, updating and adding new features can be a big headache. For example, here’s a recent comment from the WordPress forums “I am desperate for assistance with my site. All was working fine until I upgraded. As it stands right now, I tried to downgrade and my blog site is down [blank screens.]“ So, if you want all things firing you may consider getting help. And also know you don’t necessarily have the programming challenges a large company [with tens of thousands of pages of content] has. We all routinely read about different problems in the tech’ forums and trades, but if you want to avoid wasted investment and fire drills try to understand [i.e. understanding open source/ understanding word press] whether or not what you are reading applies. The small to medium sized business may have different budgets, levels of need and goals all together.
Q: Am I committed to a website?
A: This is important because there are blog sites that can do most all things any website solution can. If you see marketing and advertising as the crucial element online, than you may want to be sure your blog is the priority. With a web presence and from amongst design, presentation, lead capture, etc. you may not need a traditional website.
Q: If my website doesn’t rank, will my new blog folder or subdomain be shot from the start?
A: It’s a great question because often blogs are used to help create a search engine presence where the primary domain website has failed. If the site hasn’t gotten it done, the provider may not be versed in building search friendly website technology; therefor, it’s unlikely the blog they add will be any friendlier. You can hire an SEO, but know this kind of work [done right] can be an endless investment and you may be able to approach SEO with a good blog. If you want to build relevance be sure you’re using the most search optimized blog possible. Understand linking, proper content creation techniques and get versed on the various social networking opportunities as well.
Q: If I’m in a folder or a subdomain and want to go to a separate domain can I move my content without losing the indexing my pages have achieved?
A: Absolutely, there are Google Webmaster guidelines for permanent redirects. We’ve have done it for folks several times.
Q: If my website provider offers a blog, will it be feature rich, agile for new tools and page optimized?
A: Great question and one you should look into carefully. Ultimately, assume free anything is not hitting on all your requirements. And remember, content is a valuable asset that accrues greater potential benefits over time. It’s not completely your asset if you’re going the free route.
Q: Being that proper content creation is so important, will my provider educate on how to use a blog, it’s features and also on content creation?
A: Great question and one you should look into carefully because spinning your whells is time and time is…. Assume anything free may not satisfy all your business requirements.
Contributed by Chris Frereckschris@kineticknowledge.com
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Comments
Hi, Thanks for this post. It would be useful if anyone knows of a chart comparing the pros and cons of each? Im wanting to put a blog on my site and im wondering if having multiple posts on the blog ranking in the serps (due to the long tail nature of the titles)wil increase the site overall weight with Google? Any ideas?
Cheers