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I have a website, about web design and programming, which uses WordPress. I also list some applications that I have made, in pages like:

mysite.com/myapp1
mysite.com/myapp2

(note: these pages are not WordPress pages just simple HTML (PHP) pages that I have created)

Currently, I am displaying these aplications by WordPress posts, like:

mysite.com/myapp1-is-online-now

and this post contains a link to /myapp1.

So, this is scenario one. To summarize it, it is like:

  • my site
    • WordPress
    • my app 1
    • my app 2

the other option is, to make my homepage a custom HTML file, and make the WordPress as a subdomain or subfolder, like mysite.com/blog or blog.mysite.com and the homepage gives links to blog, myapp1, etc.

So in the second scenario, WordPress will be getting Google indexes for blog.mysite.com , but will it help my homepage to get good rankings too?

Edit:

I guess the shortest way to ask this question is: should I make WordPress root, or subfolder?

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2 Answers 2

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For better SEO, I would use WordPress as the overall site (not a subdirectory or a subdomain) and continue to upload your sample applications as separate PHP pages and link to them from within WordPress.

WordPress with a good SEO plugin will automatically generate your sitemap for Google as well as handle multiple paths to the same content (via categories, tags and/or other custom taxonomies) and apply rel="canonical". Overall, it more or less forces users into decent SEO practices that, if left to their own devices, they otherwise would not do. If that previous sentence describes you, there you go.

On the other hand, if you are an inveterate hyper-tweaker and can think of no better way to spend your days than manually constructing SEO elements in your handcrafted pages and are constantly checking your analytics to see if the last set of changes shaved off a tenth of a percentage point from your bounce rate... then skip WordPress entirely (if SEO is the only reason to install it) as it won't be doing anything different from what you are already doing.

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  • +1 For covering both sides of the coin, and what "inveterate hyper-tweakers" do ;-)
    – dan ♦
    Commented Sep 21, 2013 at 4:51
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    @dan Thanks for that. I'm sure you and I both know (or are) people who match that phrase :)
    – JCL1178
    Commented Sep 21, 2013 at 6:41
  • Ahem...quite possible. Sounds like a good name for a beta Stack Exchange site, with t-shirts to match ;-)
    – dan ♦
    Commented Sep 21, 2013 at 7:19
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    I'm in. I hope that's not misread as twerking though ;-)
    – dan ♦
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 2:39
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    Censoring the first 20 or 30 responses that spring to mind ---->
    – JCL1178
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 3:21
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For Google point of view its one of the same thing either you create a root folder or sub directory. But remember sub-domain thing requires more work in terms of SEO and development.

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