What’s the Difference Between a Subdomain and a Subfolder?
Both of these things can help you set up a more streamlined framework for your website. Looking at the website’s address (or URL) will help you tell them apart.
The subdomain is the portion of the URL after the dot, as in blog.brainpulse.com. This demonstrates that the website’s blog is hosted on a distinct domain from the main website, with all of its internal workings kept neatly compartmentalized. Every page of a subdomain often resides on its own server and is managed by a different CMS than the main domain.
On the other hand, visiting ‘blog.brainpulse.com / blog’ will reveal a blog subdirectory within the same web space and CMS.
Subfolders and SEO
When it comes to search engine optimization, Google treats subfolders the same as the rest of your website. Consequently, regardless of whether part of the website you’re optimizing, the consequences of your SEO work will apply equally to all of the subfolders within your site.
Subfolders are a fantastic option for maintaining consistency and order. Your marketing and SEO efforts won’t need to be tailored separately for each subdomain, as is the case with subdomains. Since the entire site is treated as a single entity for indexing purposes, even subfolders can reap the rewards of your hard work.
When you make changes to your main website, Google will crawl and update its index of your site, which means that any subfolder material will also be updated.
SEO professionals don’t appear convinced by Googler John Mueller and ex-Googler Matt Cutts’ repeated assertions that subfolders don’t affect a site’s ranking any differently than subdirectories. They are convinced that Google uses two separate metrics for determining where to place subdomains and directories.
SEO experts maintain that a new page might benefit from the authority of the parent domain if it is created within a subfolder structure.
Subdomains and SEO
Subdomains are denoted by singular terms or key phrases in the URL that impart an instantaneous sense of the site’s subject matter. ‘blog. brainpulse.com,’ for example, unambiguously directs them to a blog maintained by the parent site.
Subdomains allow marketers to divide a single domain into multiple subdomains, each of which can be used for a specific purpose. Since they are separate and distinct entities, they are not likely to profit from search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns that are focused on your primary domain.
Subdomains allow you to better organize your website’s structure, which is their primary benefit. Landing pages, a shop, and a weblog might all be part of a website like abc.com. Subdomains, such blog.abc.com and store.abc.com, allow the website to employ a distinct CMS for each page type.
These subdomains also show up separately in Google search results. Accordingly, it stands to reason that having several subdomains that all lead back to your main domain will boost both rankings and clicks.
Subdomains are typically used by marketers to segment parts of a site for localization. Did you know that subdomains frequently host sites in many languages?
Having a subdomain can (sometimes) cause a decrease in visitors:
Rand Fishkin, of Moz, has talked about his personal experience with folders in the past. He recalled that after moving a web page from a subdomain to a subfolder, the page’s search engine rankings improved significantly for a variety of his keywords. In the course of two years, Rand gave it three tries.
Rand acknowledges that, in terms of traffic, a subdomain configuration is usually always inferior to a subfolder configuration. This is why, if a firm finds it necessary, they should consider implementing subdomains.
The main reveal is this:
The company’s web crawlers are very familiar with Google’s industry. In their view, subdomains are intrinsic to the larger domain. But frequently, they treat subdomains as though they were a whole separate website when indexing. Any boost in search engine rankings you may have received by linking to your main site would be lost in such a scenario.
What should you do now?
Try not to create subdomains for your website unless you have to. It is suggested that you use subdirectories. However, regardless of the architecture you choose, it is essential that your website features things like regularly updated, keyword-focused content.