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New Domain or Subdomain

by petevamp
5 replies
I have been thinking of expanding my network. However one problem I have is I already run and maintain about 12 sites all with blogs. So the building links and keeping up with the blogs is getting a bit tiring. However what is you guys take on subdomains.

This would be a good way for me to build links to my main domain while building links to the subdomain. Granted it wouldn't have as much weight as a domain by itself but it sure would make things alot easier.

For the subdomain I would be running off of my affiliate marketing site. The subdomain is going to be about building web site traffic. So these two would actually go really well together. Not to mention the site in question should give it a pretty good boost right off the bat.

Has any one used subdomains and can you still get subdomains to weigh strongly in the serps for the chosen keywords. It would be a some what difficult keyword in this niche to get high up on the rankings at first but I have a few tricks up my sleave to help that little aspect out. I mean heck if I can rank better then cj for an affiliate marketing term then this should be a piece of cake.
#domain #subdomain
  • Profile picture of the author seojedi
    Subdomains can sometimes make sense when:
    • You already have two pages from your main domain ranking for a particular search query (and are trying to saturate the search results with your listings). This works because Google will show a maximum of two URLs on a given search results pages from a given subdomain, but may show more from a given root domain if there are multiple subdomains. You can see Aaron Wall doing a great job with these technique here.
    • You have a particular keyword you want to rank for that you're using in the subdomain (or a combination keyword phrase that the subdomain + root domain tie together perfectly) and you're doing specific targeting with the tactic of letting the copy/paste of the URL serve as ideal anchor text. For example, if I owned watch-reviews.com and used subdomains for specific brands like rolex.watch-reviews.com knowing that many people would link using the subdomain URL and give my page that perfect anchor text.
    • You already have a subdomain that's working well, ranking well and would be a pain to move. In the past, we've done some work to redirect subdomains back to subfolders on a root domain and seen considerable rises in traffic & rankings, but this is almost universally for root domains with large numbers of subdomains. If you just have 1-5 subdomains and they're performing well, it's not a huge concern (though it might warrant testing a redirect on one just to see).

    Search engines have metrics that they apply to pages, such as PageRank, and metrics they apply to subdomains and root domains (including things like TrustRank, various quality scores, domain level link metrics like Domain mozRank, etc.). Through years of experience, observation and testing, SEOs have observed some very steady patterns of behavior:
    • Individual pages benefit from being on powerful subdomains & root domains. This is why if someone copies your personal blog post on the best way to microwave burritos into Wikipedia, that page will rank far better than yours, even with the exact same content (ignoring the duplicate content issues).
    • Subdomains DO NOT always inherit all of the positive metrics and ranking ability of other subdomains on a given root domain.
    • Some subdomains GET NO BENEFIT from the root domain they're on. These include sites like Wordpress.com, Blogspot.com, Typepad.com, and many others where anyone can create their own subdomain to begin publishing.
    • Subfolders DO appear to receive all the benefits of the subdomain they're on and content/pages behave remarkably similarly no matter what subfolder under a given subdomain they're put in.
    • Good internal and cross linking CAN HELP to give share the positive metrics from one subdomain to another (but not always and not perfectly).
    SEOmoz | Root Domains, Subdomains vs. Subfolders and The Microsite Debate
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    • Profile picture of the author petevamp
      You have done a very good job explaining that seojedi. However as I was saying I will be increasing market presence. My original site is a marketing site. The subdomain I will be trying to rank for is a semi strong keyword phrase. My problem with trying to buy domains I know not to add in key-word.com for it serves no purpose and could hurt rankings early on. I will give you an example we will just say my original is immarketers.com and the keyword for traffic will be instant web traffic or what ever. I plan to expand the immarketers.com site further by entering another market for increasing web traffic. So the site would look as follows instantwebtraffic.immarketers.com Since the subdomain will be entering an entirely new niche and the instantwebtraffic domain is not available this should be the next best thing. Especially when you are trying to target the exact keyword for that niche which is instant web traffic.

      I actually hate using subs but I have had some really good luck with them in the past. Although I also know that by doing this for any domain. When you are building your linking structure you get both links to the main site and links to the subdomain. Now the main site offers free training for affiliate marketing and also shows you how to build your site and build traffic. So I feel the 2 sites would go pretty much hand and foot in this situation. Not to mention I will be adding a menu button on both sites linking them back and forward for how ever much content I choose to place on it. It is not the perfect strategy but it should work really well with both of them. The only problem I have is the main site google has been slapping around with the rankings but I manage to stay up above cj.com for the main term I am targeting. So it is on the front page for the terms I am targeting. And never have any problems getting to the front page most of the time for the main pages. The only pages I have a problem getting to the fronts most of the time is my secondaries and categories.

      Other then that I know I can get the main site to the front page for the term I want to target with my simple yet powerful linking building strategy. For using my main term I have always gotten my pages to the front of the serps with very little effort no questions asked. My method takes a little longer then others but I used it on all of my sites in my sig and it has shot me up to the front page each and every time for the term I try to target. Now keep in mind I really do not care if I get to the #1 spot for the term I am going to be targeting gets over 1k a day for a slightly none competive keyword. The adwords cost runs about 13$ and has around 30 advertisers for the keyword in general. So all I really need to to is get the page to the top 5 and I should be seeing around 200 a day for just the one keyword term now that is a minimum number for I normally get far better numbers then that for a top 5% for all of my sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author seojedi
    The use of subdomains for your purposes comes down to "domain equity".

    IF the content is so different from your root content and you want to build out a different area of your site as you mentioned, then the sub-domain (SD) is one way to go.

    HOWEVER....

    Changes in the way the GOOG sees and ranks sub-domains (Long, long ago, in 2007 :-) have weakened their effectiveness.

    While it is still possible (not likely however) to have sub-domains rank in all 10 spots, it's extremely difficult (GOOG HATES host crowding) and frankly more work than it's worth since you basically have to treat it like another site as far as SEO is concerned (Double the amount of backlinks content etc. etc.).

    You're better off creating multiple sites, on multiple domains, in multiple hosting accounts, on multiple server banks...er..i mean....did i just say that out loud...forget that part...it doesn't work...moving one...

    Generally speaking: If you’d like to build the equity of one web site or entity, use a subfolder If you’d like to build a new location with its own equity, use a subdomain.

    Hope that helps... and seriously, forget the multiple domain thingy...it's useless. ;-)


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    • Profile picture of the author sasglobal
      seojedi,
      First I want to thank you for a very good explanation! Do I understand correctly that subfolders work as well for related products as far as SEO is concerned than having a domain for each product as long as they are somewhat related? Say I have targeted the dog training niche, and have a domain dog-training.com. I don't know if it is available or not, and really this is just a hypothetical situation. If I want to target specific breeds for training tips unique to that breed, would dog-training.com/trainyourbeagle work as well as trainyourbeagle.com? That would be much cheaper than having a beagle domain and a poodle domain etc.
      Or would I be better off with a subdomain trainyourbeagle.dog-training.com?
      I hope I conveyed my question in an intelligent manner
      Again, thanks for answering questions!!!
      Steve
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      • Profile picture of the author Sheryl Polomka
        Originally Posted by sasglobal View Post

        seojedi,
        First I want to thank you for a very good explanation! Do I understand correctly that subfolders work as well for related products as far as SEO is concerned than having a domain for each product as long as they are somewhat related? Say I have targeted the dog training niche, and have a domain dog-training.com. I don't know if it is available or not, and really this is just a hypothetical situation. If I want to target specific breeds for training tips unique to that breed, would dog-training.com/trainyourbeagle work as well as trainyourbeagle.com? That would be much cheaper than having a beagle domain and a poodle domain etc.
        Or would I be better off with a subdomain trainyourbeagle.dog-training.com?
        I hope I conveyed my question in an intelligent manner
        Again, thanks for answering questions!!!
        Steve
        This might depend on what niche you are in too. The niche you use as an example dogtraining.com/trainyourbeagle - I would probably use that, then you are essentially creating an authority site in dog training and still ranking for the individual pages of long tail keywords.

        Using a subdomain means that you are creating new sites for each one which is more difficult and time consuming to be creating new sites each time and you are also working at ranking each individual site.

        The other thing you want to think about with subdomains is if you ever decide to sell that website, you can't just see the subdomain. So you do need to take that into consideration whether at any stage in the future you may possibly decide to sell the site.
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