It IS okay to put a blog on a subdomain. Believe it or not, there are digital industry bloggers who would still have you believe in pseudoscientific anecdotes that suggest using subdomains for blogs or other content is a bad idea. We have been using subdomains for years (disclaimer: Randy prefers to work with root domains whenever possible) and not once has any subdomain-based Website failed to perform as expected, unless we simply stopped working on it (which occasionally happens).
Over the past couple of weeks people have been citing a self-published case study by a company called I Want My Name in which they document a loss of search referral traffic by moving their blog to a subdomain and recovery of search referral traffic after moving the blog back to a subfolder. I have read the case study and I can tell you those poor guys did not know what they were getting into.
It’s unfair to the digital marketing community for any leading SEO blogger to hold up such a poor example of a case study as proof that moving content to subdomains is dangerous. The only danger is in not properly managing a site’s optimization, and there are many instances where companies fail to do that on their root domains. Subdomains hold no special place in the hall of SEO failures.
There are certainly issues associated with subdomains that adversely impact your search engine optimization, such as when your Web hosting provider automatically creates subdomains from your addon domains (here is an article on how to fix the problems that addon domains create via subdomains). But these are not issues that are inherently due to the nature of subdomains.
Through the years I have written various articles such as “When to Use Subdomains for SEO”, “Are Subdomains Bad for SEO”, and “SEO for Subdomains and How to Use Them Properly”. I have a lot of experience at promoting subdomains into highly competitive search results. It takes no more effort to do that than it does to promote root domains and subfolders on root domains into search results.
If you fail it’s because you missed something. You don’t need any special “subdomain SEO” skills or knowledge to make it work. You do need to use your common sense. If you want a search engine to treat a subdomain as if it’s the same as your root domain then YOU have to treat the subdomain that way. If you want the search engine to treat the subdomain as if it’s a separate, distinct Website then YOU have to treat the subdomain that way.
You set yourself up for failure when you make unscientific assumptions. When it comes to optimizing subdomains for search nothing changes from optimizing root domains and subfolders on root domains for search.
The facts about subdomains and subfolders are very simple: a lot of unscientific nonsense has been published by people who obviously do not know how to optimize for search properly. It’s unfortunate that anyone would give these bogus claims any credence, but people will believe almost any pseudoscientific claim because we inherently trust other people to help us, not hurt us, with their advice and opinions.
When someone tells you that it is dangerous to put content on a subdomain, ask yourself these questions:
- Did this authoritative source of information recommend PageRank Sculpting (which hurt Websites that tried it)?
- Did this guy really argue for use of correlation studies for search algorithmic analysis?
- Did this anti-subdomain person actively support the use of guest blogging for links?
- Did this great blog fail to publish credible information about the Panda algorithm while others publish it?
- Have the egregious marketing claims of this SEO thought leader been repeatedly challenged & debunked by other people in the industry?
When you find yourself truthfully answering “yes” to so many questions, you really don’t need to worry about the opinion of someone with such a horrible track record. Clearly whatever they do with subdomains is going to be subpar at best.
If you don’t feel comfortable in using and promoting content on a subdomain, that’s because you simply lack experience. If you try something and it doesn’t seem to work, you can ask for help; but ask for help from people who have made it work, not from people who can’t do it right.
Often enough all you need is a little bit of encouragement and slight correction to how you manage your subdomain-based content. You certainly do NOT need to move it off the subdomain. THAT is irresponsible advice.
Read More about Search Engine Optimization
How Long Does It Take SEO To Work?
Guest Post Link Building: Why It Hurts the Web
Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness for Non-expert Websites
On-Page Optimization SEO Checklist
SEO Metrics Online: Which Measurements Should You Use?
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Oh man, you too wrote SEO articles very well, and I understood sub domain SEO bit. Thanks.