Subdomains or Subfolder – Does it impact SEO?

Search engine optimization is critical to a website/blog’s success. When building a site and creating the infrastructure you are able to create elements such as a blog incorporated as part of a site on either a site’s subdomain or the subfolder.  For example you can set up a blog as a sub domain (http://blog.website.com) or as a sub folder (http://www.website.com/blog/

Subdomains are seen by search engines as a separate site bringing no search juice to your parent domain. A sub folder is a part of the parent site, any content added on that folder contributes to the value of the parent domain, and it all works together to add to a site’s pagerank. That content if keyword rich and relevant to the rest of the site will make your site appear in the SERPs of more keywords. Those sub-domains of your site will not get picked up for SERP unless all your subdomains are super relevant to the keyword(s) searched.

Sub-domains do have a purpose if they are to act as a “new” site with a different purpose than the main site. But that requires a significant time investment in additional SEO efforts. So plan carefully and know what the reason is for each individual structure on your site and its target purpose. When in doubt build a sub-folder.

Small Business Marketing Toolkits
Small Business Marketing Consulting for Seattle, Bellevue and the World
Local Search, Business Profiles, SEO, Keyword Research and Social Media