Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Subdomain for every us state?
-
Hi,
one of our clients has an idea of making subdomains from his main website to sell his online advertisements in all states in USA.
f.e:
He wants to have a subdomain for every state and there to be information related only or mainly to this state?
I am not sure about is this a good idea? What is your opinion about it?
-
If the domain is has an extremely high authority (80+), I would consider it due to potential to dominate the SERPs by getting the www.web version and state.web version both to rank high.
Thanks, the domains authority is 43, it is not so high.
_Yes, stick with folders. It's much simpler and much better organization (states correct as Atlanta a city). _
Yes, it is true, thank you!
Next, I second everyone else, subfolders are much more organized, subfolders look better, and subdomains are an old SEO strategy (a little spammy, especially for a new domain)
It is an old domain (registered 1994). What guys you mean by better structured? Sorry if it is a simple question, I just want to be sure if it is what I think.
Also if a web site is in subdomain, does the main domain still pass some authority to the subdomain or not much?
-
I would stick with folders for two main reasons:
- First, yourdomain.com is part of your online brand. If every state's URL is statename.yourdomain.com, I think this takes away from your brand because the first thing people see when they look at the URL bar or in search results is a state name and not your URL
- Next, I second everyone else, subfolders are much more organized, subfolders look better, and subdomains are an old SEO strategy (a little spammy, especially for a new domain)
-
Yes, stick with folders. It's much simpler and much better organization (states correct as Atlanta a city).
-
subfolders are better than subdomains, it's all under one site instead of 59 (according to obama) individual subdomains.
that was an old school strategy when Google really gave push to having the keywords in the domain name and spammers took advantage of it to rank better by creating subdomains for each keyword phrase
-
I would advise against it.
I would stick them all in subfolders of the www version of the site. www.web.com/texas
If the domain is has an extremely high authority (80+), I would consider it due to potential to dominate the SERPs by getting the www.web version and state.web version both to rank high.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO impact of 301 redirects based on IP addresses from a specific state
Hello Moz Community! We are facing an issue that may or may not be unique, but need some advice and/or clarification on the best way to address the issue. We recently rebranded and launched a new site under a new domain and things have been progressing well. However, despite all the up front legwork on trademarks and licensing, we have recently encountered a hiccup that forces us to revert to the old URL/branding for one specific state. This may be a temporary issue that lasts a couple of months or it could potentially be in the court system for a couple of years. One potential solution we have discussed is to redirect the new site to the old site based on IP addresses for the state in question. Looking for any guidance on what type of impact this may have on SEO. Also open to any other suggestions or guidance on dealing with this situation. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VeteransFirstMarketing0 -
How to handle a blog subdomain on the main sitemap and robots file?
Hi, I have some confusion about how our blog subdomain is handled in our sitemap. We have our main website, example.com, and our blog, blog.example.com. Should we list the blog subdomain URL in our main sitemap? In other words, is listing a subdomain allowed in the root sitemap? What does the final structure look like in terms of the sitemap and robots file? Specifically: **example.com/sitemap.xml ** would I include a link to our blog subdomain (blog.example.com)? example.com/robots.xml would I include a link to BOTH our main sitemap and blog sitemap? blog.example.com/sitemap.xml would I include a link to our main website URL (even though it's not a subdomain)? blog.example.com/robots.xml does a subdomain need its own robots file? I'm a technical SEO and understand the mechanics of much of on-page SEO.... but for some reason I never found an answer to this specific question and I am wondering how the pros do it. I appreciate your help with this.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seo.owl0 -
If a website Uses <select>to dropdown some choices, will Google see every option as Content Or Hyperlink?</select>
If a website Uses <select> to dropdown some choices, will Google see every option as Content Or Hyperlink?</select>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox0 -
How to resolve duplicate content issues when using Geo-targeted Subfolders to seperate US and CAN
A client of mine is about to launch into the USA market (currently only operating in Canada) and they are trying to find the best way to geo-target. We recommended they go with the geo-targeted subfolder approach (___.com and ___.com/ca). I'm looking for any ways to assist in not getting these pages flagged for duplicate content. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jyoung2220 -
Merging two different domains - subdomain or subfolder?
My company has two sites on different domains. We are considering merging the sites into one and keeping only the dominant domain. The dominate site is already a sub-domain of a larger organization so the new sub-domain would be two levels deep. I realize this is a little abstract so below is an example Dominant company site: company.root-domain.com Secondary company site: other-root-domain.com When they merge, everything will be on company.root-domain.com. Should it be other.company.root-domain.com or company.root-domain.com/other Note: The other site has several hundred pages. Both sites have strong authority and link profiles. I want to maintain as much of the value on the other site as possible with the merge.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEI0 -
PDFs and images in Sub folder or subdomain?
What would you recommend as best practice? Our ecommerce site has a lot of PDFs supporting the product page. Currently they are kept in a sub domain and so are all images. Would it be better to keep them all in a subfolder? I've read about blogs being hosted on a subfolder to be better than subdomain but what about pdfs and images? thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Is it bad to host an XML sitemap in a different subdomain?
Example: sitemap.example.com/sitemap.xml for pages on www.example.com.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOTGT0 -
Concerns about duplicate content issues with australian and us version of website
My company has an ecommerce website that's been online for about 5 years. The url is www.betterbraces.com. We're getting ready to launch an australian version of the website and the url will be www.betterbraces.com.au. The australian website will have the same look as the US website and will contain about 200 of the same products that are featured on the US website. The only major difference between the two websites is the price that is charged for the products. The australian website will be hosted on the same server as the US website. To ensure Australians don't purchase from the US site we are going to have a geo redirect in place that sends anyone with a AU ip address to the australian website. I am concerned that the australian website is going to have duplicate content issues. However, I'm not sure if the fact that the domains are so similar coupled with the redirect will help the search engines understand that these sites are related. I would appreciate any recommendations on how to handle this situation to ensure oue rankings in the search engines aren't penalized. Thanks in advance for your help. Alison French
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | djo-2836690