SEN Forum Pick: Is SEO still affected if a blog is on the main domain versus a subdomain?
SEN Forum Top Pick: Is SEO still affected if a blog is on the main domain versus a subdomain?
"In 2012 Search Engine News posted an article touting use of the main domain for blogs for maximum SEO value.
However, we are having this discussion again since Matt Cutts posted this video:
Do we now have no known benefit of placing the blog on the main domain? Or are there still very good reasons to do so.
Any evidence or wisdom one way or the other would b e greatly appreciated.
Thanks"
ronconnelly:
Hi Scott, I'm certainly not the authority on this that the others are, but I'll pipe up since I see that no one else has yet.
All the SEN recommendations have not wavered from the recommendations made starting a couple years ago. That is, we should always set up a blog in a directory and not as a sub domain. I have never heard SEN state anything other than that.
I watched the Cutts video you cite and my opinion is that he's giving you an "out" for using a sub domain setup for your blog if you have other practical constraints for that being the only way you can set it up.
caseymarkee SEN's Lead SEO Consultant & Google Penalty Expert:
Hi Scott, as Ron pointed out above, our advice here at SEN has never wavered: you should be using SUBDIRECTORIES over SUBDOMAINS for content organization whenever possible. This is especially important with regard to blog organization.
Although Google, in the oft-quoted video above from Cutts, has said "they are good about figuring this out and it doesn't really matter." Unfortunately, our experience has show that this is a completely inaccurate statement.
One of the most visible examples of Google NOT treating content on subdomains vs subfolders happened a couple of years ago with Moz.com. They moved a lot of content from their main domain to a subdomain and it was a disaster, they then moved it back.
Rand Fishkin actually just published a new Whiteboa...
