Folders versus Subdomains

[Cristian Mezei]

Who's voting for me then ?

[Michael_Goldman]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Doesn't really matter what the domain is so much as it matters what kind of authority the domain has. Domain authority tends to drive SERPs much more effectively than file / folder naming.

Agreed to that.

With all their recent changes in effort to fight spam, Google tends to give more and more weight to the domain's authority which can be clearly seen in the serps

~MG

[www.errorforum.com]

Originally Posted by John Scott

First, when SEO's are complaining to Matt Cutts about subdomain spam dominating the SERPs, you gotta wonder if something is there.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/bigdad...-almost-there/ <- Read the comments

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/6484 <- Not specifically addressing the subdomain issue, but a lot of good discussion relevant to the topic nonetheless.

Aaron's statement is particularly revealing.



The trust transfer happened without the root domain linking to the rogue subdomains.

Subdomains are golden, in my opinion. They seem to bypass all the filters, and get all the weight of a seperate domain, while retaining all the weight of the root domain. It's actually a bit unfair to the competition, IMO.

A few other advantages to subdomains:

1. Link weight

Internal links do not carry as much weight as they used to. For example, a link from www.v7n.com to www.v7n.com/scripts/ would be considered internal, and that link would not carry a ton of weight of do much for you in the SERPs.

However, Google does not seem to treat links to and from subdomains as "internal" links. They treat them as seperate domains. So a link from www.v7n.com to http://blog.v7n.com is almost fully weighted, as an offsite link would be.

2. Root Carries Weight

Historically speaking, search engines have thought that the closer to root a webpage is, the more important it is. This was especially true with Google two or three years ago.

To illustrate, remember when all pages of a website had "ghost pagerank" (aka "default PageRank")?

Back in those days, if www.v7n.com had PR8, www.v7n.com/folder/ would have default PR of PR7 as a brand new URL.

Google assigned PR based on how many folders it was away from root.

IF www.v7n.com was PR8, then:

www.v7n.com/folder/ - PR7
www.v7n.com/folder/folder2/ - PR6
www.v7n.com/folder/folder2/folder3/ - PR5
www.v7n.com/folder/folder2/folder3/folder4/ - Pr4

Google stopped assigning PR that way several years ago, but it demonstrates how they thought of folders that were several folders away from root.

(Lots of people moved everything to root back then, and it helped their Google rankings.)

Nowadays, Google treates web pages more independantly, and specific web pages of a site often outrank the home page, but there is still a more weight on root than on folders.

Subdomains are treated as root, carry all the weight of root, and therefore start out with more weight right out of the gate.


3. Great for Directory Submission

Another thing is, I can submit http://directory.v7n.com to web directories where www.v7n.com is listed, and most web directories will treat this as a URL deserving it's own listing.

But when I submit www.v7n.com/scripts/ editors refuse saying they do not want to "deeplink" when the home page URL is already listed.

4. Keywords Prominence

http://www.google.com/search?&q=www

Why do those pages rank for "www"? Because they have "www" in the URL.

Why would anybody want to rank for "www"? What a waste!

I'd rather rank for "directory" or something relevant. "www" is not relevant.

And it gets my keywords out up front. In information retrieval, historically keyword prominence carries weight.

This is to say, given these two URL's:



Or



The first would outrank the second for "green", and vice versa for "blue".

And if you really want keyword prominence in the URL, green.v7n.com would kick ass.


5. SERP Domination

Usually, a domain is allowed one or two listings (the second one indented) in the SERPs. For example:

http://www.google.com/search?&q=webmasterworld

WebmasterWorld only has one listing for that search. Ironically, SearchEngineWatch own more real estate on that page than WMW does, with two listings, one of which is indented.

So, on the default Google search, you got 10% to 20% of the page.

http://www.google.com/search?&q=search+engine+watch

Search Engine Watch owns 50% of that page now, because of subdomain use. (searchenginewatch.com, blog.searchenginewatch.com, forums.searchenginewatch.com, and feeds.searchenginewatch.com)

I'll often see SEW with 30% of the page (three listings), because of this.

If they had used folders instead of subdomains, they would only get 2 max per SERP.

i always prefer subdomains
just started a site and gt a pr of 5
and added a blog...
blog.xxxxxx.com

even blog.xxxxxx.com got pr 5 and results were good
better 2 use subdomain

[www.errorforum.com]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I gotta say, I definitely believe that using subdomains rather than folders will better distribute weight and allow more overall pages to get indexed.

agree with you john just got good results in 3 months....

[sitetutor]

Originally Posted by 52ltd

Actually marketing their sub domain instead of what their competitors Nissan.com do

actually http://www.nissan.com/ is still owned by Usi Nissan, a few million dollars in attorney fees later, Nissan has yet to get the .com of it´s own brand.

http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

Sorry for being off topic.

[zagu060807]

I go for folders, subdomains are just used if there are different users involved IMO...

[TheFriend]

Some links, which could help.........

http://www.darin.cc/sem/subdomains-vs-folders/
http://www.monetizers.com/folders-vs-subdomains.php
http://www.highrankings.com/issue105.htm
http://www.highrankings.com/issue105.htm#guest

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=...le-Suche&meta=

[John Scott]

In the time since this thread was started, Google has definitely changed their treatment of subdomains. It appears they treat subdomains the same as folders now, so I don't see it making a big difference either way.

[redspace]

interesting topics. I believe John Scott and Cristian Mezei would lighten up this seo things for our benefit. Exchanging knowledge is great because it would trigger unsuspected knowledge and benefit to come out.

[d-bag]

Hi guys, I'm new here but I've lurked here for a while. I wanted to share this issue because I think it's relevant to the discussion in this thread, so I hope this is a good place to post this.

Here's my (hypothetical) situation:

I have allabouthorseradish.com. I also have blog.allabouthorseradish.com and forum.allabouthorseradish.com. These sites are big in their niche but they are not as high-profile as about.com, ebay or Google.

While the domain allabouthorseradish.com ranks consistently well for (for example) "buy ch33p h0rseradish online", I get the feeling that both subdomains are competing with each other. One Google DC returns a top ten SERP with the forum prominently ranked, but without the blog. Another DC returns the blog, but no sign of the forum on page 1. I'm starting to notice a pattern, because it seems like Google would like to index one rather than the other, instead of doing what it usually does (rank a bunch of subdomain spam). Actually in the past few months we have never noticed either of these subdomains occupying the same SERP. Not once.

I wonder if the blog and the forum have been rendered incapable of occupying the same SERP. I can't prove it, and I can't say it's likely, but I can't deny that I'm seeing this pattern either. Most disturbing to me is the notion that these subdomains might not show up in the same search results for the same keyword.

I know it sounds crazy, but is anyone else seeing anything similar?

[M4Pz.com]

spam

[zeruel]

Thanks for all these information guys... It is really a great help for me...

[zagu060807]

Hmmmm, but I think subdomains are used for big sites, right?

[miamiman]

Originally Posted by John Scott

In the time since this thread was started, Google has definitely changed their treatment of subdomains. It appears they treat subdomains the same as folders now, so I don't see it making a big difference either way.

John,

Since you were decidely pro-subdomains 18-24 months ago, is it safe to assume now that the folder option is better? It's a lot easier to create/manage folders than sub-domains, true?

[John Scott]

I still like subdomains myself.

[gururise]

Folders do seem slightly more advantageous than subdomains.