Finished with a business website, my colleagues and I decided its time to give it a blog. Initially, a new domain was in the plan but I said I wanted the blog’s content to affect the main website’s PageRank.
Thus came the next question, should it be a sub-domain or a sub-directory?
Researching for the best course of action I came up with these:
Sub-domain Process
Ex: blog.yoursite.com
* Google will look at this as a brand new domain – starting from scratch.
* Sub-domains will not be supporting the root domain. So any rank you get from the sub-domain will not affect the root domain. Except for having backlinks.
* The advantage of a sub-domain is, if it has low-ranking pages, each of this pages will not drain the score from the main’domain’s content. All it would do is add a bit of link juice to the main domain.
Sub-directory Process
Ex: yoursite.com/blog
* Google will view this as a new directory of content directly associated with your domain. This will add value to your website and all pulling PageRank from your domain and content pages.
* You don’t have to do anything funky in webmaster tools.
* This is the best way to go for manageability.
In general context:
* There is no SEO advantage to either way. It all boils down to preference.
* Recommended bit, always place forums in sub-domain and a blog in sub-directory.
My decision? Sub-directory. I would need to discuss it first with colleagues though. :)
Hope this helps others too.
Cheers!
