Should I Use Subdomains or Subfolders for my Website SEO?

This is a topic of conversation that has been circling around for quite awhile. Some will say you need to use subdomains while others will insist on subfolders. Conflicting answers can be very confusing, not to mention frustrating, so let’s take some time to clear the air. 

Subdomains are an interesting concept. They can come across as having less technical hurdles and from a technical operations perspective, some things might be easier. But, from a SEO perspective, subdomains can be dangerous and you need to be very careful. For example, let’s say you’ve got blog.yoursite.com or you have www.yoursite.com/blog. Search engines might consider the content that’s on this separate subdomain to be the same as the content that is on your main domain. This means that all links, rankings, and usage data signals may be benefiting not only your main domain, but the subdomain as well.

It’s been seen time and time again where content has been put on a subdomain first and then eventually moved over to the main domain. And the results have been pretty positive. Rankings and search traffic can see a considerable boost. This has been a very popular method to put blog.yoursite.com and then eventually move it over to a subfolder. However, in a recent study it was tested to put content from the main domain to a subdomain and the results were pretty ugly. Search traffic took a nosedive and it has taken many months to recover this site back into the good graces of search engines. 

So while many people may think highly of subdomains, use them with caution. The best solution is to keep your content on one single sub and root domain, preferably subfolders assuming it is the same site. This way, you will maximize your potential SEO benefit. If you want to give your website every chance of being successful, this is probably your best bet. Subdomains are still a good idea for completely different websites.