Blog. vs /Blog

[bradkrussell]

Hi,

The best practice amongst SEO professionals is using a subfolder (www.website.com/blog).

Here's a few Q+A threads that might help:

1. http://www.seomoz.org/q/blogs-are-best-when-hosted-on-domain-subdomain-or
2. http://www.seomoz.org/q/setting-up-a-company-blog-subdomain-or-new-url

Here's a couple of other resources on SEOmoz that also point to using the sub folder approach:

1. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
2. http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain

Thanks,

Brad

[AlanMosley]

Do you have any evidence for this?

I refer to these 2 views from google

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

[AlanMosley]

But brad, what evidence are they using to justify these views, see my above post about what Google has said on the matter

[MalcolmGibb]

Setup a subdomain blog. on your site and a /blog directory and then use SEOmoz competitive link analysis. You will see it shows different DA, Google sees these as completely separate entities.

I do believe there is some value passed on, but from my own experience /blog ALWAYS wins over blog. and I've done numerous tests on this.

[UnderRugSwept]

Even in the first article you posted, Matt Cutts says that blog. works for very large, established websites, but for everyone else, I got the vibe from him that he was leaning more toward /blog

[UnderRugSwept]

Here's the real question: if you acquire inbound links to blog.domain.com do those links add to the DA of domain.com or only blog.domain.com? Answer that and you've answered the question.

[AlanMosley]

Have a read of the links i posted, they are from google, both say there is no difference.

Why do you say google treats them differenct. what seomoz does is not the point

[AlanMosley]

correct.

I cant say I know for sure, but google counrts links from subdomsins in wmt as internal links. also it listyes pages from subdomsins as sub links in listings like this

http://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&q=iboats&oq=iboats&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_l=serp.3..0l10.16768.17926.0.18531.6.6.0.0.0.0.268.836.3j1j2.6.0...0.0.KNdjWgzW3ck&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=3098d8619e2fd6b8&biw=1280&bih=909

[AlanMosley]

All due respect, a vibe is not evidence.

i have looked into this much in the past, and could not find anything to justify the belief that sub-folders are better for seo.

[bradkrussell]

Hi Alan, I have not tested myself but I have read numerous articles and they all point to the same thing. Everything I have read from industry leaders such as rand and Matt cutts says sub folder is preferable. I'm just going by what they say. Thanks

[AlanMosley]

In the the link i posted Matt says it makes no differnece, and i believe Rand said it is his personal preference.

[bradkrussell]

Hi Alan, See this thread from only April this year: http://www.seomoz.org/q/subdomains-vs-subfolders Rand states: All the testing, research and examples I've seen in the past few years (and even the past few months) strongly suggest that the same principles still hold true. Subdomains SOMETIMES inherit and pass link/trust/quality/ranking metrics between one another Subfolders ALWAYS inherit and pass link/trust/quality/ranking metrics across the same subdomain

[AlanMosley]

Yes if the subdomain is verified by anouth user it will not pass, but if you do not verify subdomain google has stated they will count links from subdonmains as internal

[UnderRugSwept]

I totally understand where you're coming from. It's just that Matt Cutts saying something isn't evidence either. We all know the way he likes to dance around issues, keep things obscure, and rarely ever truly answer a question directly. But hey, I'm not so stuck on my position that I'm not open to counter evidence; I'm even willing to admit the possibility of there truly being no difference. All I know is I'd never do my company's blog that way unless we became super-well-known and had a DA of 90 or more. (Then I wouldn't either, because why change the URL of such an established blog!)

[UnderRugSwept]

Wait, it just dawned on me that sub-domains can't possibly pass on pagerank because if they did, everyone who started a new website hosted on the Wordpress platform would automatically have a PR100. What am I missing here?

EDIT: Doh! I meant DA not PR

[AlanMosley]

They definately do pass page rank, it is just if it is internal links or external.

They would nott have pr of 100, becauce each page has its own page rank.

also As i stated above, if google can tell if a sites is on the same subject or on multiple subjects.

Take a look at these 2 results, the first word press conatins a sub domain in its sitelinks, but to the en(english subdomain), they can tell that that subdomain belongs to the root.

https://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=wordpress&oq=wordpress&aq=f&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_l=hp.3..0l4.1292.1292.0.1676.1.1.0.0.0.0.383.383.3-1.1.0...0.0.eJcS0C6Duts&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=7c4df592a329114b&biw=1280&bih=909

Have look at this result and yopu will see that many of these companies subdomains are listed as belonging to the same site

https://www.google.com.au/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=iboats&oq=iboats&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=hp.3...146410.147314.1.147555.6.6.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0.MLsJj78G5H8&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=7c4df592a329114b&biw=1280&bih=909