New jobboard: Can redirecting folder (site.com/jobboard) to subdomain (jobboard.site.com) hurt SEO?

[stl99]

Hi there,

I'm planning to implement a jobboard on my website which needs to be installed on a subdomain (jobboard.site.com) but I'd really like to use site.com/jobboard for promoting this jobboard (jobboard collects external industry jobs).

Are there any possible disadvantages when I set up a 301 redirect from jobboard.site.com to site.com/jobboard?

Also: What if I want to move this jobboard to a unique domain one day (e.g. jobboard-industry-xy.com), Would that be tricky (as I'd basically have to redirect the folder-to-subdomain redirect to an external domain and therefore get a folder-to-subdomain-to-external-domain redirect...)?

Cheers,

Thomas

[AlanMosley]

I have had the argument over and over, most say subdirectories are better, but none have produced any evidence to back this. On the contrary
Deb, it really is a pretty personal choice. For something small like a blog, it probably won’t matter terribly much. I used a subdirectory because it’s easier to manage everything in one file storage space for me. However, if you think that someday you might want to use a hosted blog service to power your blog, then you might want to go with blog.example.com just because you could set up a CNAME or DNS alias so that blog.example.com pointed to your hosted blog service. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/

What's the difference between using subdomains and subdirectories? When it comes to Google, there aren't major differences between the two http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2008/01/feeling-lucky-at-pubcon.html

[stl99]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the reply!

Both installations will use custom CNAME settings but the jobboard could get popular some day and justify a unique domain (for better branding) - what do you think about the future change of the domain and the needed multiple redirects (subdomain to directory to external domain) SEO-wise?

Cheers,

Thomas

[MikeTek]

Hi Thomas,

If I could jump in here - I think the two levels of 301 redirects won't sacrifice much. A small amount of link equity is lost through a 301, so you'll be doubling that, which isn't ideal, but if you are indeed anticipating hosting the job board at three separate locations, there won't be much of a way around this.

You could change the first level 301s (from the subdirectory) to skip the middle step and point right to the domain, and then 301 any pages on the subdirectory that built links to the domain, avoiding the multi-step 301s for the most part.

Provided your directory structure and page titles don't change much along the way, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the 301 redirects done, even if they're folder-to-subdomain-to-external-domain.

Best,
Mike