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Sub Domains and Wordpress - Some Questions

by Peter Burke
19 replies
Hi Guys

I was wondering if anyone has any knowledge on whether it matters whether a wordpress (self hosted) blog is on a sub domain or not as far as SEO purposes are concerned.

I was thinking of setting up some presses pre Xmas.

In particular I was wondering how the subs would be affected as far as SEO all in one and RSS feeds.

I look forward to your replies



Peter
#domains #questions #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author Simon_Sezs
    From my experience, adding a blog as a subdomain doesn't affect SEO whatsoever.
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    • Profile picture of the author Chri5123
      Hi Peter

      To be honest I am not sure as I have never tried this.

      I don't think that a well optimized Wordpress blog would have any problems getting good SE positions on a sub domain though.

      I normally get a new URL for each one.

      All the best

      Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author Diana Lane
    I've never had any trouble getting WordPress Sites that were installed on subdomains indexed, and I wasn't even trying to. They were niche demo sites, and the sole purpose of their existence was to be able to show them to prospective clients who'd visited the main site looking to buy a copy of one to hang on a domain of their own.

    Yet visitors would come from search to the subdomains every day looking for niche info, without ever seeing the main site at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ross Dalangin
    For my experience, it is better to create a sub-domain that just a folder.
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  • Profile picture of the author GuruGazette
    Another hearty yes here

    I have a network running on WPMU with wildcard DNS, so I can create subdomains on the fly. They all get spidered, indexed, and ranked really quickly just like any other WP site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Peter Burke
      Great Help Guys

      I wasn't entirely sure and could see myself 'experimenting' again.

      Much appreciated


      Peter
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      • Profile picture of the author Jared Alberghini
        Setting up a subdomain for your blog is a great way to organize, without effecting SEO. blogname.yoursite.com may actually be better than yoursite.com/blogname/ in some cases.

        If anyone is interested, I have a free open source PHP SubDomain Script that automates the process of setting up individual subdomains/folders and it's available for download here: Free Scripts - AffiliateNicheMonster.com
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        • Profile picture of the author Eric Lorence
          The only problem you could encounter would be hosting resource issues if you use shared.

          In my experience, as few as 6 or so WP installs will start to strain the server, and could cause a problem.

          You would then be forced to upgrade the entire site, not piece by piece, because every WP installed would be indexed and would have to stay attached to the same domain.

          Then you would have to reinstall the entire domain and every blog and database.

          For a regular person without the aid of a sysadmin, could be overwhelming.

          Just my 2
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim Brendel
    I have a similar issue, but didn't really get a clear answer above.
    I also have 1 domain and would like to set up folders for my niche sites. I will being using Wordpress for each site, with the pretty permalinks(www.mydomain.com/insurance/cheap-car-insurance) for SEO purposes.

    Does anyone know for sure if it is better (for SEO) to have folders or subdomains?
    By folders I mean: (All examples for reference)
    www.mydomain.com/insurance/blog-post-name.html
    www.mydomain.com/tattoos/blog-post-name.html
    www.mydomain.com/loans/blog-post-name.html

    or is better to have subdomains?
    blog-post-name.mydomain.com

    I will probabily have 5 nichce sites max for this domain name, then start over again with a new domain name.

    - - Thanks Warriors - -
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    • Profile picture of the author Eric Lorence
      You don't need physical folders for that, just go to your WP control panel under settings/permalinks and choose a URL structure that fits.

      You can also add additional tags to your url's as well.
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      • Profile picture of the author Tim Brendel
        Originally Posted by Eric Lorence View Post

        You don't need physical folders for that, just go to your WP control panel under settings/permalinks and choose a URL structure that fits.

        You can also add additional tags to your url's as well.
        I'm fairly to new to Wordpress, so I dont really follow what you mean. I know that is off topic of this thread, sorry.

        Are you saying instead of creating specific folders my domain, and installing a new instance of Wordpress to each folder, to use the default Wordpress install instead? I have the All-In-One SEO plugin installed, and I believe it will let me specifically give each posting a custom address.
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        • Profile picture of the author Eric Lorence
          Originally Posted by up4bidz View Post

          I'm fairly to new to Wordpress, so I dont really follow what you mean. I know that is off topic of this thread, sorry.

          Are you saying instead of creating specific folders my domain, and installing a new instance of Wordpress to each folder, to use the default Wordpress install instead? I have the All-In-One SEO plugin installed, and I believe it will let me specifically give each posting a custom address.
          I the control panel, you can choose how you want your URL's to look, and in what order.

          No need to create subfolders for individual posts or categories.

          domain(.)com/category/post title
          However, this option cannot create subdomains

          subdomain.domain(.)com
          That will take quite a bit more work, to position posts from one blog into multiple subdomains.
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          • Profile picture of the author Tim Brendel
            OK, So I get it now on how to setup my URL's if I go the folder route.

            Now I need to decide if it is going to be better for SEO to use the pretty permalinks or subdomains. I guess i will have to test both methods. Has anyone experimented with this would care to comment?

            mydomain.com/category/niche-blog-post
            or
            niche-blog-post.mydomain.com

            Thank you all for your input!!!!
            I look forward to posting my success (or failure) with everyone later.
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  • Profile picture of the author agoodsaid
    My understanding is that Google treats subdomains as independent websites. So especially if the new ones are off topic to your main domain content - it would actually be way better for SEO.

    Andrea
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  • Profile picture of the author Leanne King
    You can use subdomains for all the keywords of your main site - just like you would with categories to get some seo advantages. Give it a whirl at least it is free to try

    Leanne
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  • Profile picture of the author uconcept
    I have many sites on subdomains and they are all indexed in google. The main difference it that google sees subdomains as a whole new website and if you install your wordpress in a folder, it sees it as part of your main domain. So, if you plan to install wordpress in folders that are not relevant to the main domain, you are just hurting yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author looseleafpress
    Yeah,

    A sub-domain will not have any real effect on SEO. So use one if you want.
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  • Profile picture of the author leesr
    I learned a little above.
    Thanks all.
    I just want to add, you can't easily "flip" a sub-domain. Keep that in mind if you think you may eventually want to sell off a wordpress site.

    If you just want to put up a lot of "keyword" domains (aka IPK), sub-domains is the route I'm using, for blogs and sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author Shane Hale
    I ma starting to think that perm links rate and get ranked higher than starting a whole new subdomain. Use your existing site leverage. That is just me and my research. I have been seeing even old Tripod freepages with keyword specific my-nich-article.html type pages ranking top 3.
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