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Subdomain or Folder?

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Feb 07.2007

I have lot of subdomains in my site. I created subdomain for each city, so when the site expands to new cities, number of subdomains also goes up. I opted for subdomain instead of folder, mainly for branding.

I thought that the user will be happy to see seattle.domain.com instead of [url]www.domain.com/seattle[/url]. So far, subdomains worked ok. I am thinking of whether to switch to simple folder structure due to following reasons.

  • 1.

    My main domain has page rank of 4. Subdomains have page rank of 0. Just zero! All the links come to main domain. Subdomains have no backlinks. I think this also affect the ranking.

  • 2.

    My domain comes up in the natural search results, but subdomains never show up there.

    • Even with folders, I can still keep subdomain structure using htaccess redirects. But, I am worried that if I have too many instructions in htaccess file that may slow down the system. I already have 20 subdomains, I expect to have atleast 10 more by the end of this year.

    My questions:

  • 1.

    Does it make any difference to the search engines whether I have folders and subdomains? IMO search engines need to go thru all the headache to find the relevant content for the keyword, but coders are breaking their head to adapt to search engines. 😉

  • 2.

    If I am going to go with folders, I will still use subdomains for branding, but that can be done by htaccess. I can have links point to subdomain.domain.com, but htaccess will redirect them to [url]www.domain.com/subdomain[/url]. Is it ok to have 30 subdomain redirects in htaccess of main domain. Does the number of instructions (in htaccess) even matter?

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    8 Comments(s) ↴

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    @p_leaFeb 08.2007 — subdomain = totally new site

    folder = credits top site

    http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65935&highlight=subdomain
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    @Compguy_PeteFeb 08.2007 — I would do a redirect to the folder or something else.

    typically I've only seen sub domains useful for quickly telling someone an address that maybe rather long or timely to explain because of slashes and such.

    A good example is movie sites that aren't worthy for their own TLD... HA
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    @ramwaimeaauthorFeb 10.2007 — p_lea and Pete: Thank you very much!
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    @engihabFeb 14.2007 — HI, ramwaimea

    WHAT DO YOU DO ?

    WHICH OPTION YOU CHOSE ?

    SUBDOMAIN OR SUBDIR !!!!!!! HA

    SHARE US YOUR CHOICE ?
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    @ramwaimeaauthorFeb 14.2007 — I haven't decided yet. I contacted google to throw some light on this. I feel that I am going to go with folders. It all depends on what the big google say.
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    @WebGeek182Mar 14.2007 — subdomain = totally new site

    folder = credits top site

    [URL]http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65935&highlight=subdomain[/URL][/quote]

    Very concise! Exactly right.
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    @positionnementApr 08.2007 — folder is the more important to rank well in search engines.
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    @IntensityApr 12.2007 — 1. Does it make any difference to the search engines whether I have folders and subdomains? IMO search engines need to go thru all the headache to find the relevant content for the keyword, but coders are breaking their head to adapt to search engines. ;-)[/QUOTE]

    It all really depends. Building SubDomains is like building a new website. It is hard work to market 20 websites at once. But consider this: 20 websites build up and linking to one source = Main URL. It ads up. Plus in any case, if one of your sub domains gets banned, it does not effect the other subs or tld's.

    2. If I am going to go with folders, I will still use subdomains for branding, but that can be done by htaccess. I can have links point to subdomain.domain.com, but htaccess will redirect them to www.domain.com/subdomain. Is it ok to have 30 subdomain redirects in htaccess of main domain. Does the number of instructions (in htaccess) even matter?[/QUOTE]

    Doesn't Matter. Just ensure you are utilizing a 301 Redirect.
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