Deciding whether or not to integrate a company blog on your root website (a directory such as example.com/blog) or host on a subdomain (such as blog.example.com) is an important decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
For years, we’ve heard the “subdomain versus integrated blog” debate (seriously, we have talked about it a lot), and although Google says it really doesn’t matter because both will be indexed, it does matter in terms of SEO.
In this post, our team will help you answer the question: do subdomains affect SEO?
What You’ll Learn:
- The Difference Between a Subdomain and A Subfolder
- How Google Interprets a Subdomain
- Is Your Content Going to Contribute as a Rank Factor?
- Will Your Subdomain Help the Authority of Your Main Domain?
- Is Your Subdomain Separate From Your Main Domain?
- How Does Internal Linking Work for SEO on a Subdomain?
- What’s the Best SEO Option for a Domain?
- When Should You Use a Subdomain?
Subdomain vs. Subfolder: What’s the Difference?
When considering the benefits of either, you might wonder what the differences are between a subdomain vs. subfolder. While they’re similar in certain respects, there are some key differences between them to keep in mind that impact your SEO.
First, let’s consider the core similarity: Both are “child directories” that exist under a “parent directory,” but their functionality as child directories differs in a potentially significant way.
While subfolders are part of a core domain as folders within that domain, subdomains are separate URLs that have their own designated address, keeping them unattached to your main website.
The differences between a subdomain vs. subfolder can influence SEO in a couple of ways.
If you’re trying to gain more traction for keywords on your core domain, you will want to create subfolders within that domain.
If you want to supplement your main website with a separate site that branches out, a subdomain can help, but it won’t be as quick to do so as a subfolder.
Ultimately, a subdomain can be great for helping you rank for keywords that your main site is struggling to capture, but it can also wind up competing with your main domain.
How Does Google Interpret Subdomains?
A company blog can generate 55 percent more website visitors (or more!), but if you host on a subdomain, you lose a huge chunk of traffic and ranking opportunities for your main site. Although some argue the benefits of a subdomain, it won’t rank as high or as quickly as an integrated something published on the main domain. Plus, the root site will be the one to suffer the consequences of having two sites. It will never get that full, on-site benefit. Don’t worry, I will flesh this out more.
A subdomain basically works as the middleman for any of your SEO efforts for your main site. Any SEO power your subdomain generates may slowly trickle back to your main site, but the results won’t be as powerful as if you were to just skip the middleman.
Google Views Subdomains as Separate Sites
Just as Google says, both your subdomain and root site will be crawled and indexed, but that’s just the problem. “From an indexing and ranking perspective,” Google states, “Google doesn’t have a preference.”
Your company site and your subdomain will be two separate sites. If Google is working to index both your subdomain and your website, you’re limiting the SEO power of both instead of allowing them to work together. By keeping your content separate from your website, you decrease the SEO value of your main website and lose many visitor benefits and ranking factors.
However, with an integrated website, Google will see both your main site and your subdomain as one, strengthening the power of both as they work together in terms of ranking factors.
If your main goal is to build a strong customer-focused website that ranks well, a subdomain is pointless and doesn’t help your main domain nearly as much.
Subdomains Don’t Count Toward Your Main Domain or SEO Efforts
With a subdomain, the posts are featured on a separate website, so the content won’t contribute as a major ranking factor for your main site. We all know that the more pages your site has to index (if they are quality pages that people read, share and link to), the higher it will rank because Google loves content-rich sites to boost authority.
With an integration, Google will crawl the new posts within “anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, adding more value to the main site. Not to mention, the subdomain posts will inherit the authority of the parent site, so both the content and website will rank better.
Subdomain SEO Shares Won’t Benefit the Main Domain’s Authority
With 77% of internet users spending their time online reading blogs and using social media, you have the perfect opportunity to market your posts. However, while an increase in social media shares and external links will benefit your subdomain, they won’t help your main site’s authority.
Any subdomain links shared won’t contribute to your main site’s link authority or ranking in search results because they are (basically) considered two sites, they just have a lot of links between them. But, with an integrated site, backlinks and social media shares generated from the content will help the other pages on the main site rank higher and build the root site’s link profile.
As companies with blogs receive 97% more inbound links than those without, any site linking to your blog posts with a subdomain will dilute any value of the external links. But, with integrated content, the full power of the link juice will pass on to your main site.
A Blog on a Subdomain Essentially Creates a New Website
Hosting your blog on an SEO subdomain not only creates more work for yourself and increases your costs, but you’ll essentially be competing with yourself because you‘ll basically have two separate websites. With two separate sites, you’ll actually be hurting your keyword focus.
What many people forget is the fact that the ranking value of links combined with the keyword benefits will actually produce substantial ranking factors for your main site. Yes, the exact match and partial match keywords will add some value to both when using a subdomain, but combining the keyword focus with a strong link profile on one site offers unmatched ranking power. If your ultimate goal is to increase your company visibility as a whole, you want your blog and main site to work together, not against each other.
Subdomains Don’t Help Internal Linking
Since a blog subdomain is considered to be a separate entity from a root domain, links to and from the two sites are considered to be external. Any links from the subdomain to the root won’t be considered internal linking and may actually do more harm than good because they will be viewed as external links from a low-quality extension of your domain. Although Google may come to see that the two sites are interrelated, that doesn’t guarantee the search engine will carry the links’ influence from the subdomain to the primary in any way that benefits your SEO.
What Other Impacts Does a Subdomain Have?
SEO isn’t the only area that may suffer from a subdomain. Your brand may suffer because a well-written blog allows visitors to get to know your company by showcasing your human side and building you up as a subject matter expert. The lack of a blog on your website creates a disconnect.
Without proper integration, having a blog on a subdomain can also hurt your conversion rate optimization. Users often get confused if there is not a clear funnel between the two that targets the website’s micro and macro conversions. In addition, analytics tracking gets much more complex, as you need to set up a filter in Universal Analytics.
The Best Option for a Domain Instead of an SEO Subdomain
It’s a lot easier and more cost-effective to establish and promote a single brand and website than it is to juggle two with a subdomain. If your main goal is to boost your root site’s authority and SEO power, you need your blogs in a subfolder, which would make it an integrated blog. The best thing you can do for your blog subdomain SEO would be to get it out of its subdomain.
When You Should Use a Subdomain vs. Subfolder
Let me give you a couple of quick pointers on when you want to use a subdomain, so this is not an entirely one-sided blog post.
Technical Reasons
Here are a few technical reasons for using an SEO subdomain:
- When you don’t have full control over the content: If something could go totally wrong, and it is all user-generated, you would consider a subdomain.
- When you don’t want it to be connected to your main site: Do you want it to look like a different website? Then maybe use a subdomain. Just don’t expect an SEO boost.
- When creating a staging website: If you want to create a staging site for testing purposes, you may want ot develop a password-protected subdomain.
Branding Reasons
You may also want to create a blog subdomain for branding reasons such as:
- When the content is on a completely different theme: If your site is about bikes and you are launching a blog on golf, put it on a subdomain (why you would start that blog I don’t know, but you don’t want to be connected to it.
- When compartmentalizing aspects of your business online: Another branding reason for using subdomain SEO is if you want to separate certain sections from your main website. For instance, many brands develop a “support.[domain].com” site that serves as the brand’s help section or a place for FAQs.
SEO Reasons
It’s essential to focus on the SEO implications that come with creating a subdomain:
- When it is thin content: If it is just a bunch of cruddy content you need to go live, but don’t need or want it to rank, put it on a subdomain.
- When you think it could be penalized: Generally, penalties are on the subdomain level. If you are worried about a Google penalty for some reason, you can use a subdomain.
- When you are not trying to get ranking potential for your main site: If it is not for inbound marketing and SEO, then dump it on a subdomain…
Subdomain SEO: When NOT to Use
Generally, we recommend against using a subdomain if you want your main website to gain traction more than anything else. Since subdomains count as separate URLs from your primary website, creating a subdomain could create competition and detract from your main domain. This is particularly crucial if you don’t have content that you want to disconnect from your main site, as your core website and subdomains could easily compete.
Subdomain SEO FAQs
1. How do subdomains affect SEO?
Subdomains affect SEO in three different ways:
1. They allow you to insert keywords in the URL. In cases where it is better to opt not to include a keyword in the main URL, this is a great opportunity to fit in more challenging to rank for keywords.
2. They can improve user experience. If you have a complicated and large site where user experience is negatively affected this is something that needs to be resolved.
3. Subdomains can appeal to a more niche market if you’re struggling to grow an expansive domain authority.
2. Does Google index subdomains?
Yes, Google does index subdomains, unless you explicitly take steps to exclude them from indexing.
However, when Google indexes your subdomains, there’s a good chance it will compete with your main domain, which is bad.
3. Can subdomains rank on Google?
Yes, subdomains do rank on Google.
The issue is not whether subdomains will rank on Google, rather, it is how. There are large implications for SEO considering that subdomains rank separately from the main site.
4. What are some common use cases for a subdomain vs a subfolder?
There are some use cases when a subdomain is more ideal than a subfolder, depending on the application.
An example of this would be selling internationally, as you may build your brand to reach audiences all over the world. In these cases, you can create location-specific subdomains that rank locally.
An example of this might be a “ca.[domain name].com” site that reaches audiences in Canada while your main website connects primarily with audiences in the U.S.
You may also use a subdomain to create a client portal, a mobile-responsive version of your site, or a test website for changes in web design and development.
5. Is a subdomain really a separate website?
Even if a subdomain is directly connected to your brand and website through messaging, visuals, and links, the fact is, search engines view it as a separate website.
Meanwhile, subfolders will bolster your main website as a true part of it.
In most cases, a subdomain is only really useful if you want to create content that’s not directly attributable to your website.
6. Which should you use: subdirectory or subdomain?
Subdirectories, or subfolders, and subdomains can both play a role in helping your brand.
The decision to use either comes down to whether you want your content to help your main website or connect with audiences through another platform.
Subdomains are great to use if you have a wide range of content and some of it isn’t quite compatible or relevant to your main site.
Subdirectories, on the other hand, are best if you want to improve your main site’s SEO and support it with more high-quality on-site content.
7. Is it possible to create a subdomain for a subdomain?
Yes, it’s entirely possible to do this. However, it’s not advisable.
Even one additional site like a blog subdomain can be difficult enough for your audiences to remember when mainly familiar with your core website. Having too many subdomains of subdomains could easily and quickly confuse your audiences, making them rather useless in the end.
If you’re going to create a subdomain, it’s best to avoid creating any extending subdomains from that.
If you really need to create multiple subdomains, make them subdomains of your main website. For instance, use “help.[main domain].com” for a help portal and “shop.[main domain].com” for an eCommerce branch of your business.
8. Does creating a subdomain cost money?
The answer to this will depend on your existing hosting setup.
If your hosting service enables you to create subdomains for free, then you can avoid paying for them and benefit from better ROI with these websites.
Conversely, if your plan requires you to pay for any additional websites, this could wind up costing you.
Regardless of whether you have to pay for a subdomain, ensure you have a good reason for developing one. This decision will be even more critical if you’re working with a tight budget and worried about how one or more subdomains might impact your main site’s SEO.
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