Moving blog to a subdomain, how can I help it rank?

[DigitalMoz]

Hi all,

We recently moved our blog to a sub-domain where it is hosted on Wordpress. It was very recent and we're actively working on the SEO, but any pointers on getting the subdomain to rank higher than the old blog posts would be terrific.

Thanks!

[RickyShockley]

I know that rand recommends hosting your blog on a FOLDER of your root domain instead of hosting your blog on a subdomain.

The reason for doing so is that the domain authority of the subdomain will put a slightly larger distance (in terms of authority signals carrying over) from the root.

For example, its better to have your blog at bobsmithdental.com/blog vs blog.bobsmithdental.com.

After that, its really a matter of tightening up your keyword optimization on the blog posts and building and earning quality inbound links!

-Ricky

[Travis_Bailey]

A sub domain is no better than a folder and vice versa. I'm more curious what brought about this decision. So if you know of an interesting argument, I would like to hear it.

Now, what you may need to do, unless all the external links to the pages are terrible, is setup 301 redirects. How to do that would really depend upon your server. The vast majority are Linux based. So you would have to search something like '301 redirect htaccess (server flavor)'. That could be Apache, Nginx, CentOS... whatever. Either way, you'll get there, and if it's still a question then there are plenty of forums that specialize in your server type.

Beware of htaccess. It will knock your site down if you mess up the configuration via white space or some other syntax error. Try it in a test environment first, if possible. 'Always look both ways before crossing the street.' That is how you handle htaccess.

I don't want to startle you, but right now you're possibly losing a ton of traffic. Maybe you aren't losing any at all. I don't know, I don't know your domain. I can't even begin to guess.

Refer to your analytics and redirect if it's worthwhile. That's all I can say without knowing more.

[paints-n-design]

Funny, we made that last few month - but the different way - from a subdomain to a folder. We directed older to newer posts, cleaned the code, speed up, made it responsive and moved it to the folder.

If you want to have great SEO effects with a blog you need it on the sub-folder like RickyShockley said bevore.

[David-Kley]

From search engine journal:

"For blogs, I prefer a subfolder (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/) because the link juice which is sent to that blog is going to be naturally distributed to that main domain, and other subfolders under the domain.

Futhermore, the forum/blog will default logo, home page and other links back to the subfolder. If you set this up with a subdomain, by default, the links in the forum/blog itself will all point back to the subdomain. So, with a subfolder, both the inbound and internal linking structure favor the entire site.

With a subdomain, the forum or blog will be listed as a separate entity in the Google search results, which is good for owning the results and one’s reputation management. However, Google and other engines will generally not list more than two of these subdomains in the search results, unless those subdomains can prove to Google that they are independent and relevant entities."

If you don't know htaccess, redirecting the site to and from the subdomain can be a nightmare. If not setup correctly, your subdomain can cause you all types of duplication and strange URL complications.

Hope this helps!

[RickyShockley]

Right on, David. That's what I'm referring to Travis. Rand also mentioned this recently in a WBF.

[Travis_Bailey]

Sure, but the subdomain/folder debate has been going back and forth for years. And I wonder if it's not so much a question of where, but a question of a bunch of new URLs. Would that possibly make a search engine reconsider the pages?

We know Google and Bing have stupid amounts of computing power. Duane Forrester has said that a Bing server farm causes so much heat, that they have to contact the FAA when they vent the facility. It causes turbulence.

We already know that no search engine can crawl the entire web at this point. So, it may be reasonable to think that some pages are just rated and possibly semi-forgotten. Once a page gets a new URL, it may look like a new thing. The algorithm has changed. New results populate. That may be the case.

Or there could actually be a genuine human preference, though my mom doesn't pay much attention to the URL.

This stuff is quite difficult to discern with complete certainty. It's basically physics. When you contact the search engines, they contact you back. Now, those contacts are happening billions of times a day.

For now, I will remain agnostic. Sub domain, or sub folder are equally fine until proven otherwise with proof beyond a few tests.

[DigitalMoz]

I would like to have done it as a folder, but that wasn't feasible at the time. I have some limitations in terms of the CMS that our corporate site is hosted.

[DigitalMoz]

We haven't lost any traffic yet, I've been pretty cautious and we've actually had a huge improvement in some areas. I'm can't really share all of the reasoning behind it, but I appreciate the note about potentially losing traffic. I had a suspicion about the redirect though, if I can't change the htaccess, would PHP or similar redirects do anything?

[DigitalMoz]

Going to a folder would be great, but the reason was due to the way the CMS works and a few other things. I know it's not the most popular way, but it's a dramatic improvement so far.

[DigitalMoz]

My long-term is to get it into a folder, but in the meantime I've had to do a subdomain. Just wondering if I can specifically make the subdomain rank higher than the old (previous) folder URL.

[Travis_Bailey]

You can use PHP redirects, and they'll do the same thing. Though it will be a little slower and the page still has to technically exist. If it's a very high traffic site, then it may eventually become an issue.

[DigitalMoz]

That's great, thanks for the info! Do you know of any resources off-hand about "generally not [listing] more than two of these subdomains in the search results" for more detail?