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Subdomains vs. categories on new TLDs?

by BlueIcebreaker
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi,

I have recently acquired a new domain (one of the new TLDs). I am an experienced SEO guy, however this new domain comes with an opportunity that I haven't explored yet.

Here goes:

For example, let's say the domain is www.food.menu.

If I wanted to create different sections for chinese, mexican, italian food, would it be better to structure my website:

1. By subdomain:
  • italian.food.menu
  • mexican.food.menu
  • chinese.food.menu
or

2. By subsection/sub-url:
  • www.food.menu/italian
  • www.food.menu/mexican
  • www.food.menu/chinese
What is your experience with this?
#categories #new tlds #subdomains #tlds
  • Profile picture of the author seopratyush
    As my experience sub directories are more efficient than sub domains. You can opt for sub-domains only when you have different language versions of websites.

    Google appears to let link juice flow through to subdirectories more efficiently, which can result in higher rankings for your new page(s). The perfect example is wordpress where categories are created in the form of subdirectories not sub-domains.

    I hope this will help you to decide which side you should go
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  • Profile picture of the author PBSolutions4U
    My thoughts are that subdomains are superior
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  • Profile picture of the author mathan
    Go with sub-directories.

    also you can create a category for those countries.
    Remove /category/ from url using plugin.
    It will helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author PBSolutions4U
    Why not do it both ways?
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      I'd probably pick sub directories, but it depends on other considerations. Whichever would better suit the site.

      Originally Posted by PBSolutions4U View Post

      Why not do it both ways?
      Because it's a bad idea to have two versions of the same page. Doesn't serve any practical purpose either.

      Originally Posted by BlueIcebreaker View Post

      How about making standard WP categories, then creating subdomains on the server and having them point to the categories? Will that add more juice to the categories themselves? Will this have an impact on someone searching for "italian food menu", for example?
      Not really, unless that subdomain already has a bunch of links pointing to it. Just adding another domain doesn't help.
      Signature
      Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
      Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

      What's your excuse?
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      • Profile picture of the author HarrisAndrea
        A subdomain is treated as a new website, so I would say using subdirectories is better because you will just need to focus in building the authority of a single website instead of multiple websites
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  • Profile picture of the author designandplace
    Subdomains are not treated the same as part of the url, so I would structure your site properly using categories rather than subdomains.
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  • Profile picture of the author BlueIcebreaker
    How about making standard WP categories, then creating subdomains on the server and having them point to the categories? Will that add more juice to the categories themselves? Will this have an impact on someone searching for "italian food menu", for example?
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