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If I run a blog or something in my subdomain like www.sub.name.net is it going to have any decreasing affect like decrease traffic through search engines or low ranking through on engines?

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I have a similar doubts: Yes, Google has subdomain such as maps.google.com, webmaster.google.com, new.google.com, etc. What I see is all of this subdomains are considered as "World Ranking No.1" but not different Ranking/traffic counts? Any expert can help? I am asking this because I am thinking of creating a subdomain for my current website, veganlogy.com, which will have traffic flows to my main domain, like Google's Ranking. If I create - forum.veganlogy.com and news.veganlogy.com, will these traffic consider/flows as increase my veganlogy.com's ranking? Thanks. – user17610 Aug 9 '12 at 21:15

migrated from stackoverflow.com Nov 8 '10 at 13:59

5 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Subdomains and subdirectories are essentially equal in Google's eyes and probably the other search engines as well. Choose which one is easier for you to maintain and meets possible future growth needs.

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I disagree that are essentially equal in Google's eyes, at the same link you provided Matt says also: A subdomain can be useful to separate out content that is completely different. Google uses subdomains for distinct products such news.google.com or maps.google.com and what about this: webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/1198/… and this: searchenginejournal.com/… – Marco Demaio Mar 28 '11 at 13:10
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You misunderstood what he is trying to say. First of all he says they aren't really different for SEO which really covers it all. It's because neither one is. If why Google separates products by subdomain isn't readily apparent then you've never managed a very large set of content. Why Google separates by subdomain, and other sites do as well, is so you can point that content to different IP addresses. – John Conde♦ Mar 28 '11 at 13:16
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This allows that content to act like a different website from a network management point of view. It's much easier to work with that much content that way versus subdirectories. So, there is no SEO value in a subdomain vs a subdirectory. Just more opportunities in managing the physical content – John Conde♦ Mar 28 '11 at 13:17
well, how do you explain this then?! webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/1198/… and what it's writen here: searchenginejournal.com/… (links suggested by Jeff Atwood himself: webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/3496/…) – Marco Demaio Mar 28 '11 at 18:32
What Matt Cutts says trumps what others say. You're putting speculation over fact. Matt Cutts is very clear that's there is no SEO difference. So anyone who doesn't work for Google who says otherwise is either wrong or being misunderstood/misinterpreted. Not to mention Jeff's post verifies what I said. :/ – John Conde♦ Mar 29 '11 at 11:54
up vote 5 down vote

No it won't affect your traffic.

But it is always a better option to have your blog as part of your overall domain not as a sub domain or its own domain, as the blog is going to have regular updated content which improves the domain rating and also the blog is more likely to have people link to it. Which again helps improve your domain's authority and will mean the rest of the site ranks higher.

Here is a more in-depth review.

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up vote 1 down vote

No it won't affect traffic in a negative way on your main domain, but according to this question the vice versa (I mean having your blog in a subdirectory) might greatly affect your traffic on the main website in a positive way.

This topic was dicussed also here and they come to this conclusion:

if you’d like to build the equity of one web site, I suggest using a subfolder.

If you’d like to build an entire new entity with its own equity, launch a subdomain

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up vote 0 down vote

No. An easy to remember domain is a bonus, but it won't affect your traffic from search engines, or shared links via facebook etc.

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up vote 0 down vote

Subdomains are treated as separate domains by search engines. Generally speaking, this doesn't exactly help with your ranking and isn't desirable, unless you specifically don't want to treat the blog as a part of the larger site.

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