A Question About Wordpress...

23 replies
Is it possible/advisable to have more than one Wordpress blog on a single domain name?

Example:

genericdomain.com/niche1

genericdomain.com/niche2

genericdomain.com/niche3

etc... Where a different Wordpress blog is setup in each sub-directory.

If this is allowed/possible/advisable, would search engines like them/loathe them? How would search engines see them compared to using different domain names for each blog?

Thanks,
Adam
#question #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author RobinSkeen
    You certainly can have more than one blog on a domain. I would use subdomains (niche1.genericdomain.com) instead of sub directories. As to whether the search engines like them, there are various opinions on that. I can only speak from personal experience. I do get search engine traffic on sub domains but I get more by driving traffic to them.
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  • Profile picture of the author BigManta
    It is possible, but it depends on why you would want to do that. Typically subdomains or multiple blogs are used as a means of building another section off a main site. i.e. If you have a technology blog but have enough to warrant another section/site on Apple products a subdomain would be good.

    Think of Yahoo or Google:
    - local.yahoo.com
    - travel.yahoo.com
    - finance.yahoo.com
    - maps.google.com
    - analytics.google.com

    They're all building off the main domain but have enough content or uniqueness that deserves a separate site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      I built a sub domain off of a main domain. I built up the subdomain first, and it has a higher PR than the main domain.

      Both are wordpress.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adam Carn
      Originally Posted by BigManta View Post

      It is possible, but it depends on why you would want to do that. Typically subdomains or multiple blogs are used as a means of building another section off a main site. i.e. If you have a technology blog but have enough to warrant another section/site on Apple products a subdomain would be good.

      Think of Yahoo or Google:
      - local.yahoo.com
      - travel.yahoo.com
      - finance.yahoo.com
      - maps.google.com
      - analytics.google.com

      They're all building off the main domain but have enough content or uniqueness that deserves a separate site.
      Do you mean the topic of the subdomains needs to be related to the main site? The Yahoo example you gave has subdomains of totally different categories.

      Adam
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      • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
        You might want to look at WordPress MU, then you can have blogs setup like the Yahoo or Google examples.

        That way, you also only have one installation of WordPress to keep updated, instead of several instances in several directories.
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        • Profile picture of the author Adam Carn
          Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

          You might want to look at WordPress MU, then you can have blogs setup like the Yahoo or Google examples.

          That way, you also only have one installation of WordPress to keep updated, instead of several instances in several directories.
          Wow that looks like a good solution, I'm gonna look into it thanks.

          Adam
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      • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
        Originally Posted by Adam Carn View Post

        Do you mean the topic of the subdomains needs to be related to the main site? The Yahoo example you gave has subdomains of totally different categories.

        Adam
        No, it doesn't have to be the same topic. My main domain I speak of is not a real word but a play on words and is a blog about wp blogging. The subdomain is a blog about scams.

        Think about wordpress.com. Those are free accounts, and everyone is essentially making subdomains on the main wordpress.com site. Everyones blog is different and they all rank differently. So, if it is a branding type primary domain it may not really matter. If the main domain is niche specific then you may want to carry on the particular theme.

        Example: cat.com might have a sub domain of bestcollars.cat.com and kitten.cat.com where as fiddlefaddle.com could have tools.fiddlefaddle.com and cats.fiddlefaddle.com
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  • Profile picture of the author 7_8_shortcuts
    Originally Posted by Adam Carn View Post

    If this is allowed/possible/advisable, would search engines like them/loathe them? How would search engines see them compared to using different domain names for each blog?

    Thanks,
    Adam
    Nothing wrong with search engines here.

    but...

    I would do this only if every blog is related to each other or just to test something temporarily.

    In the long run it is better for seo (and PPC for that matter) to NOT let Google wonder too much about what your main domain actually is all about...

    If Google sees too many different subjects being covered on the same main domain, it will not really help your rankings or PPC quality score.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adam Carn
      Originally Posted by 7_8_shortcuts View Post

      Nothing wrong with search engines here.

      but...

      I would do this only if every blog is related to each other or just to test something temporarily.

      In the long run it is better for seo (and PPC for that matter) to NOT let Google wonder too much about what your main domain actually is all about...

      If Google sees too many different subjects being covered on the same main domain, it will not really help your rankings or PPC quality score.
      How about if I use subdomains, will Google still see it as ONE site and give it poor rankings?

      Adam
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  • Profile picture of the author mr_cool245
    Subdomains will be good Choise, But the OWN domain is More then subdomains
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    Use a sub domain, then point a domain to that sub-domain. REMEMBER to disallow search engine bots to index that sub domain thru your main domain in a robots.txt file! They need to find it by the domain you point to it (otherwise it has the same IP. Same IP and they will not consider it a different site.)

    Hosts like GoDaddy and several others are automatically set up that a subdomain when accessed thru a new domain name pointed to it will have a new IP address and as far as a search engine is concerned may as well be on a separate server...they have no way to tell, if you disallowed access in you robots.txt file on the base domain. Some hosts make you buy a dedicated IP to differentiate the domains with different IPs. To find out, check the IPs on your FTP application and make sure the 3rd of 4 groups of numbers is different. (In most cases all the numbers will be different, if they are not, you need to purchase IPs or use a host that does it automatically).
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    • Profile picture of the author Adam Carn
      That's very techie stuff thanks. I think I understand!

      Thanks,
      Adam

      Originally Posted by DogScout View Post

      Use a sub domain, then point a domain to that sub-domain. REMEMBER to disallow search engine bots to index that sub domain thru your main domain in a robots.txt file! They need to find it by the domain you point to it (otherwise it has the same IP. Same IP and they will not consider it a different site.)

      Hosts like GoDaddy and several others are automatically set up that a subdomain when accessed thru a new domain name pointed to it will have a new IP address and as far as a search engine is concerned may as well be on a separate server...they have no way to tell, if you disallowed access in you robots.txt file on the base domain. Some hosts make you buy a dedicated IP to differentiate the domains with different IPs. To find out, check the IPs on your FTP application and make sure the 3rd of 4 groups of numbers is different. (In most cases all the numbers will be different, if they are not, you need to purchase IPs or use a host that does it automatically).
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    • Profile picture of the author Adam Carn
      Originally Posted by DogScout View Post

      Use a sub domain, then point a domain to that sub-domain. REMEMBER to disallow search engine bots to index that sub domain thru your main domain in a robots.txt file! They need to find it by the domain you point to it (otherwise it has the same IP. Same IP and they will not consider it a different site.)

      Hosts like GoDaddy and several others are automatically set up that a subdomain when accessed thru a new domain name pointed to it will have a new IP address and as far as a search engine is concerned may as well be on a separate server...they have no way to tell, if you disallowed access in you robots.txt file on the base domain. Some hosts make you buy a dedicated IP to differentiate the domains with different IPs. To find out, check the IPs on your FTP application and make sure the 3rd of 4 groups of numbers is different. (In most cases all the numbers will be different, if they are not, you need to purchase IPs or use a host that does it automatically).
      I'm using Wordpress MU. I am in the process of creating many subdomains with blogs. Will Google and other search engines rank them normally? Like they were normal domain names? Do I still have to edit the robots.txt to disallow search engines indexing the subdomains through my main domain? If so how would I do that?

      Thanks,
      Adam
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    PR is by page and has no bearing on the issue, really
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  • Profile picture of the author Catalin Ionescu
    Adam,

    I'm not a SEO specialist, but there are several points to keep in mind while deciding to use subdomains versus separate domains as a business practice.

    - Site load - If your sites start growing in size and traffic, it's easier to spread the load by moving one or more domains to a different server than moving just some subdomains. Both can be done from a technical point of view, but moving full domains is easier.

    - Banning - This issue is also encountered with shared hosting. If a site is banned by IP, all sites that share the same IP are also affected.

    - Selling sites or transferring ownership - If later you decide to sell a site, having it on a subdomain ties the buyer to you since you as the domain holder control the DNS settings for the entire domain. If each site is on a separate domain, you'll transfer ownership of the domain as part of the sale.

    Sincerely,
    Catalin Ionescu
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  • Profile picture of the author DogScout
    You can use this plug-in to manage multiple WP installs wherever they are or the MU version: Manage Multiple Blogs from a Single Blog - Wordpress Plugin

    (You have good points, Cat, why having different IPs and domain names is good, even if it is on a sub-domain.)
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  • Profile picture of the author Jay Sullivan
    You can do it, but why? There's a hell of a lot of time and effort trying to set and run each installation, and it won't really affect your SEO that much to be worth all that EFFORT
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  • Profile picture of the author ejfern22
    I personally have used subdomains for my websites before. When I created websites I would have subdomains that would have wordpress templates on them and I would promote the subdomain of the website rather than the website itself. Since Google likes wordpress blogs it made sense to promote the subdomain rather than the website. Of course if they both were wordpress blogs that would be just as good too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    If you can afford it, get a separate domain for each of your sites. Not only will it help in your SEO efforts, but as a previous poster pointed out, if you decide to flip, you'll have the flip the whole lot, because you can't parcel out just one subdomain to sell.
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  • Profile picture of the author JonMills
    Originally Posted by Adam Carn View Post

    Is it possible/advisable to have more than one Wordpress blog on a single domain name?

    Example:

    genericdomain.com/niche1

    genericdomain.com/niche2

    genericdomain.com/niche3

    etc... Where a different Wordpress blog is setup in each sub-directory.

    If this is allowed/possible/advisable, would search engines like them/loathe them? How would search engines see them compared to using different domain names for each blog?

    Thanks,
    Adam
    Adam I did this on a community site to segment off particular topics and it works extremely well to keep your visitors focused on a topic, and from a SEO point of view i found it a killer way to rank well
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    • Profile picture of the author Adam Carn
      Originally Posted by JonMills View Post

      Adam I did this on a community site to segment off particular topics and it works extremely well to keep your visitors focused on a topic, and from a SEO point of view i found it a killer way to rank well
      Thanks Jon,

      Do you mean sub-directories or subdomains.

      Adam
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  • Profile picture of the author Ross Dalangin
    Make your sub-domains or folders be related to the main site.

    Ross
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    • Profile picture of the author Adam Carn
      Originally Posted by Ross Dalangin View Post

      Make your sub-domains or folders be related to the main site.

      Ross
      From what I have planned, my subdomains won't be related to each other or the main domain.

      Adam
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