Blog – Subdomain or Subfolder? Which Is Best?
Blurb by Shaun Anderson (Hobo) -
Would I host a Blog on sub-domain or a sub-folder on the main site?
For me, like a lot to do with seo, it would depend on what I had to start off with:
- Sub-domain – If I have a large site with a lot of domain authority, like a powerful brand, or a well cited organisation or institution, I’d consider a subdomain. The benefits are enormous – an EXTRA two spots in Google search results, etc, etc. After all – as a brand the site already HAS a lot of domain authority (Pr7-10). I’d be spreading that s*** all over the place if I had the resources to actually build value into the subdomain – like Google does
- Sub-folder – If I have a smaller site (Pr0-Pr7), like most of us have, I would put it on the main site (it doesn’t have to be in a folder it could be in the root), because you are LOOKING for MORE domain authority, and links generated by your blogging will help your whole site gain trust in Google and ultimately gain more trust – trusted links are a key to good rankings in google these days – though it’s worth pointing out Pagerank isn’t always an accurate measure of the amount of trust a site has
For most, putting a blog on your main site is of most benefit, if of course, you are actually going to spend time making the blog a useful destination. Neither is a quick win – both include a lot of work, but making something of value usually does.
Ultimately it’s the quality of WHAT you put WHERE, rather than WHERE you put it.
I’d never put a blog on a separate domain, and I’d never go with the even easier option of hosted blogs on domains I don’t own.
PS – I’d use WordPress, and I’d respect the license. 
There’s more than one way to skin a cat – What would you do?
* Someone emailed me and asked me this. So I mentioned I would blog it.
We've recently updated our comments policy and increased the number of comments a visitor has to make to get seo friendly links in comment signatures to reward long term readers and make it a bit harder for dofollow spammers ;) - I told you dofollow spamming wasn't a long term strategy....
This answer to the question is very accurate and helpfull. As a senior Online Marketing Strategy consultant I get a lot of questions about website structure, URL’s, places of Tools etc. This particular question comes along quite regularly and I would have given the same answer. Also because Blogs are often more LongTail and the relevance is sometimes lower. It is often used to explain a topic offered on the corporate website in more detail or related to another subject. This could mean the relevance on the main site becomes lower for the main SEO keywords. It could easily destroy the investment in SEO and/or Branding when we put the Blog on the same domain and invest more time (and words) in Blogging than in the main website.
Very clever to update your comments policy that way.
Just to be clear, it is better for a PR0-7 site to have http://www.domain.com/blog than to have blog.domain.com?
Thanks!
Subdomain vs folder is a long standing question for blogs and forums and as you said, there is no clear winner. My personal preference is to go for a folder for blog and subdomain for forums. Forums tend to go awry, it’s not as easy to control spam there, with blogs it’s definitely much easier.
In one or two rare occasions I have also bought a domainblog.com type of blog but were looking for more reputation management than SEO. We wanted to ensure that domain name and brand name queries result into first 1/2 pages resulting into favorable results only
Hi Shaun, it’s an interesting question, one that we are asked a lot by our customers. Getting away from the technical response, I think it boils down to what the customer is trying to acheive from the blog. Our initial response would be to keep the blog on the same domain as the main site, ie /blog but this depends on whether the blog is going to be “on brand” or whether it is there for different purposes.
The most important thing (in my opinion) is what you said below:
“Ultimately it’s the quality of WHAT you put WHERE, rather than WHERE you put it.”
That’s what it is all about…. once people are on board with that, then the conversation moves on to the important things… traffic, conversation, brand, leadership etc
Great blog by the way!
Mike
I’d always go with subfolder, pretty much for the reasons you state.
The only time a seperate domain has ever proven to be useful was when I got two links from a company – one on their blog and one on the main site, both high PR.
I do think though, and it really bugs me when it’s not done, if you do have it on a subfolder, at least make sure it matches the design of the main site.
Great posting! This is something I have been thinking about the whole week
There is one more thing I may add: if the competition is fierce, you still might want to move your blog from a subdomain to a subfolder even if your main domain has PR7. It is a good guideline you offer, but it all comes down whether you need the extra ‘juice’ or not.
I think many people would appreciate if you added one more paragraph about how to migrate properly – just to be on the safe side.
I love your practical, down-to-earth blog postings
I agree that it completely depends on your site – if you do a search for money saving expert or someone like that, they OWN the serps because they’ve got so many subdomains. But if you’re smaller, you’ve got to build up that kind of credibility, which is why giving more weight to your main domain is important.
I always say to clients though, only bother with a blog (and use no other than wordpress or a custom build!) if you’re going to update it. I love blogs, but they’re rubbish if they’re out of date/empty.
Lx
Hey, Chantal, could you please explain this a bit more?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Shaun,
I have been wondering about this and related questions, and I have some followup. The separate domain question is something I concur with. I was mystified to hear that it was supposed to be better to have it on a separate domain, but have never found a compelling argument for that. Anyway, a couple of supplementaries:
1) Why does placing the blog at root it help to build domain rank? (I have some waffley thoughts but would like something definitive)
2) Let’s not forget to think about whether to call it /blog or /somethingbetterforseo! (depending on how the thing will be used)
I did read that if you call something /blog, you better post regularly or Google with think its a crap blog and downgrade it. Later I heard Matt (bowing) Cutts say Google don’t penalise blogs for not posting regularly, so that seems unfounded.
However, why say “/blog” unless you want to rank for “blog”? I’d like to hear what else people use and why, or people’s thoughts on what to use.
For example:
/seo
/marketing-services
/web-design
/articles
/news
/latest
/products
/library
/reference
/offers
/bargain
/technical
Clearly it can be used to add some keywords to a non keyword like domain. E.g. http://theWebalyst.com/web-marketing or to provide a filter keyword as in /articles or /news
/blog of course is nicely neutral as far as search goes, or is it? I wonder!
What do you think? Any reall no no’s? Any hot ideas?
Mark
Hosting a blog on another domain might be useful for light linkbuilding. The quality of the links depends on the quality of the blog domain as it evolves. I’d never put a blog I am serious about on another domain if it was supposed to benefit the main site.
Hosting a blog on your main site (in the root or a subfolder) builds your sites trust, as you add content and get links to it. It’s thought this effect is far lessoned if on a subdomain. For instance, if a PR 8 page linked to you – your whole site would benefit (from increased pagerank at least) if the blog was on your main site.
Yes that sounds like b*ollocks
I think keywords in urls are of great benefit but I do not overdo it
Thanks Shaun, your responses are appreciated,
Mark
Shaun,
1. What the heck does is the blog post in your image about? Or is it in some foreign language?
2. I never noticed that google listed subdomains as unique sites, so that if you have a powerful subdomain, you could potential get an indented (double) listing for your site, and then another one for the subdomain, thus claiming FOUR spots! Of course, you first have to get even one of them ranked…
Still, an interesting observation, and one to file away for future reference…
Steve
PS. Speaking of blog post images, I really liked your “newspaper-ized” blog post image.
@ Steve – It’s called ‘Lorem Ipsum’ and I think it’s latin – designers use it as placeholder text
Hey Shaun,
I guess without that, I missed it. Steve
Ah, of course… I don’t see it that often, but when I do it is in full and starts, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt’… with the first two words being the give away.
Thanks Shaun. I am using the best of both worlds over at blogReaction… User’s get their blogs on a subdomain but the main site has all the sub categories as sub-directories. Great tips Shaun!