About Subdomains

by 5 replies
6
Hi!

Would they rank in the same way as domains?

Thanks!
#search engine optimization #subdomains
  • Pretty much, yes. Google treats them as separate sites, not as sections of the regular domain. That said, I suspect that keywords in the subdomain are less powerful as a ranking factor than keywords in the main domain. In general, given a choice, I would go with a regular domain.
  • (**Edit**: Apparently not, so I refer you to dburk's post below for more info.)

    Doesn't Google limit the number of indexed links that it will display in Serps for any one keyword, to three from the same TLD? So if you try to dominate the top ten using subdomains off one TLD you will max out at three, whereas you can still use separate domains as addon domains with your hosted TLD and theoretically you can grab the front page of Google.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi williamspd

      I have a number of keywords where I have 4 listings from the same domain on the 1st page of SERP. There are also sitelinks which tend to consolidate those links into one listing. That is without even using sub domains. So if there is a limit it is greater than 3.

      Here is a search that has 4 listings from the same TLD on the first page:
      stanford large scale search engine - Google Search

      With my personal search history enabled I see 6 listings on the 1st page, of course this will vary based on each person's own personal search history.
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Nice find dburk! I see six pages ranking as well from stanford(dot)edu.

    Had to do this a few times in the past as an old friend with a site on IIS wanted a WP blog. It did get PR pretty fast though since we added SEO'd sitelinks on the main page.
  • Thanks for that dburk, it looks as though the maximum is 3 listings per domain (in this case, 3 listings from infolab.stanford.edu) regardless of whether there are other subdomains on the TLD. That has cleared up a long-running query I had, and given me some food for though :-)
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