Subdomain or Subdirectory Name for a SEO Blog?

Subdomain or Subdirectory Name for a SEO Blog?–It depends!

Some quick definitions of “Subdomain” and “Subdirectory”:

A subdomain is a completely different website (from the ‘main-domain’) and it looks like this, “http://subdomain.main-domain.com”.

*Note–For ease of clarification, I’ve used ‘main-domain’ instead of ’site-domain’ as the Top Level Domain (TLD): e.g. main-domain.com or Top-Level-Domain.com

The URL of a subdirectory looks like this: “http://main-domain.com/subdirectory.”

Search engines see subdirectory just that–subdirectory of the website’s domain. Basically, what that means is that the subdirectory belong to the site’s main domain or subdomain, which again is a different website from the ‘main-domain’.

So, if the main-domain has high page rank (PR), the page rank gets distribute throughout the subdirectories within the main-domain; but the subdomain does NOT, however, feel the PR love from the main-domain :razz: . This is, again, because the subdomain is a different website from the main-domain.

O.K. Now that we’ve gotten the subdomain/subdirectory definitions down, let’s go back to the question of whether a subdomain name or a subdirectory name is best fitted for your SEO blog.

To simply put, if you have have a main-domain site about cat, “www.cat-domain.com,” and you want to create a blog on “cat food,” then you should choose “cat-food” as a subdirectory for your SEO blog, “www.cat-domain.com/cat-food.” This is because “cat-food” is related to your ‘main’ website topic, so your subdirectory SEO blog will feel ‘more’ PR love from your ‘main-domain’.

On the other hand, if you want to create another site for “dog-food,” you should choose “dog-food” as a subdomain of the “cat-domain.com,” since “dog-food” has little relevance to your main-domain site, www.cat-domain.com.

And because a subdomain is a different website, you can actually have a subdirectory-blog in the subdomain (e.g. subdomain.main-domain.com/subdirectory-blog).

So, if you want an SEO blog out of the subdomain, you can have “luxury-dog-food” as a subdirectory name: “http://dog-food.cat-domain.com/luxury-dog-food”. And yes, if you have high PR for the subdomain “dog-food,” your SEO blog on “luxury-dog-food” also feels the PR love from your SUBDOMAIN, but not from your main “cat-domain.com”.

And that’s concluded my rambling on subdomain vs. subdirectory for an optimized SEO blog :cool: .

Anyway, to recap, if you have a blog topic (“cat-food”) that’s related to your main-domain website (“http://cat-domain.com”), for SEO purpose, you should choose the subdirectory route: cat-domain.com/cat-food. But if your blog is of different topic than your main-domain website (“dog-food”), you should choose “dog-food” as a subdomain name for your SEO blog: dog-food-blog.cat-domain.com.

O.K. Now, I really am finished rambling about the subdomain and subdirectory dilemma :mrgreen: .

*Of course, you still need links (and other factors) to be able to rank in the SERP ;) .



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10 Comments to “Subdomain or Subdirectory Name for a SEO Blog?” »
  1. May 7th, 2007 at 11:25 am
    debra wrote:

    One of the better descriptions on the difference between sub domain/directory I’ve read!

    Reply to this comment »
  2. January 11th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
    jarno wrote:

    Its Nice, I’m looking for this post…
    tks

    Reply to this comment »
  3. February 25th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
    Micheal Lee wrote:

    hanks for this. very easy to understand although a complicated topic. much enjoyed, thanks!!

    Reply to this comment »
  4. April 29th, 2010 at 12:50 am

    I think making a blog in domain subdirectory / subdomain is very helpful in getting traffic for main site. Blog gets frequent visitors and back links as compared to static sites and if your blog gets quality backlinks so as your main site will.

    Reply to this comment »
  5. May 4th, 2010 at 4:45 am
    jack wrote:

    Nice topic “Subdomain or Subdirectory Name for a SEO Blog”.One of the better descriptions on the difference between sub domain/directory I’ve read!It is very easy to understand.Thanks.

    Reply to this comment »
  6. May 6th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
    jane wrote:

    Well I think a blog on a sub-domain is a good option and quite successful also.I have tried it many times and seem also and the results on it are good.

    Reply to this comment »
  7. June 2nd, 2010 at 5:56 pm
    maily wrote:

    Thank you for such a useful article. The information presented will help everyone that reads it. Please continue to elaborate on this subject as I’m sure there will be more need for information on this in the future.nice way for me .

    Reply to this comment »
  8. August 18th, 2010 at 3:26 am
    harly wrote:

    Nice post.If you throw your content into a subdirectory, usually the code is all in the same file storage space. That can make it much easier to find/edit/change code. It can also be easier to move code from one place to another. A subdomain, however, is often a domain name system (DNS) alias. Subdomains can be a little more difficult for a novice webmaster to set up, especially if words like “CNAME” don’t mean anything to you. Subdomains can be managed separately, which can be a joy (you can use DNS to decouple a subdomain if you want to migrate that part of your site) or a pain (it may be more of a hassle to juggle DNS setting instead of just using file commands to make or move directories).Thanks for share with us.

    Reply to this comment »
  9. August 21st, 2010 at 9:27 am

    There are many traffic people on him site Now it’s possible people can now get best traffic and more improvement.

    Reply to this comment »
  10. August 25th, 2010 at 8:19 am
    Nick wrote:

    this is the article which provide us the right difference between subdomain and subdirectory name…thanks for providing i need this information…

    Reply to this comment »
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