Subdomain or Start over?

[PPI]

I have a site that is currently set up geo-targeted in sub-domains.  So each geo is princeton.site.com.  Each site has the same code, design, but the events listed are different.  There are about 30 subdomains and they are  looking to expand nationally.

After the Panda update, I am seeing that it looks like they should stay as sub-domains rather than redirecting everything or setting up new domains.

Any thoughts on if the sub domains should stay and expand exponentially? SEO strategy, etc.? I'm also worried about the possibility of duplicate content.

Thanks!

[OrionGroup]

Before answering, I have a few questions...

How many pages of unique content exist already on each of these subdomains?

How many backlinks do you already have built to each of these subdomains?

Have you verified each subdomain in Google Webmaster Tools? How many pages are indexed for each?

Scott O.

[Francisco_Meza]

There is not enough information to answer this question. if this is geo targeted to cities, then why not just do example.com/city-1, example.com/city-2, etc.

[PPI]

The site was brought to me in this state.  I've been reading that Google suggests subdomains for this type of site, even more so now after Panda:  http://www.whitefireseo.com/site-architecture/subdomain-or-subfolder-post-panda/360/

[PPI]

The content all appears to be unique - I am not seeing any dup content flags, but they are similar.  Each subdomain has anywhere from 50 to 200+ pages.  It does not look like much has been done for link building - just some regular social media posting on facebook, etc. I have attached the OSE overview for the subdomains.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to their webmaster tools yet. But they are pretty well indexed.

Thanks Scott!

XBe0KCz

[Francisco_Meza]

When Google talks about GeoTargeting they mean countries, not cities. You cannot get target cities in GWT, only countries.

I have NEVER seen a company that had a website with subdomains for every city.

[PPI]

I really haven't seen much of it either, but citysearch.com is a good example.

[Francisco_Meza]

If you are trying to do something like that where the audience is only for local business, then you can do it just like city search and craigslist.org.

"IF" you target market is similar, then you have a choice between subdomain and folders. Do what is best for your audience.

[Aleyda]

Hi there,

Why are you looking to migrate the subdomains to subdirectories? In general, the most "natural" URL structure for a city organization would be: yourdomain.com/city/category/ since you will be able to consolidate all the popularity that you can attract to the different cities to your main domain structure and on the other hand, optimize (as you should be already doing with your subdomains) every landing page targeting each city.

Nonetheless, if you're already ranking with these subdomains for your keywords related to these cities the effort and substancial benefit that you might look to get might not compensate the effort -only if you see that you're not ranking with this structure and look to consolidate popularity-.

What is definitely fundamental that you do whether you decide to keep the subdomains or migrate to the subdirectories is that each city page (and its subpages) should feature unique, relevant content optimize for them. This shouldn't be necessarily difficult to achieve if you organize and optimize your structure to show:

• The name of each city in the titles, meta descriptions, headings.
• Add your specific office address in each city.
• Add your telephone number in each city.
• Enable and promote user generated content, like reviews, comments, ratings targeting each city.
• Create different offers or promotions for each city.

Like this, despite the fact that these city landing pages might feature similar offering (which is normal since they're the same business at the end) the content will be unique for each one of them.

I hope this helps. If you still have any doubts, please let me know.

Aleyda