• seohunters9

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Technical SEO
        4. Microsite on subdomain vs. subdirectory

        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.

        Microsite on subdomain vs. subdirectory

        Technical SEO
        4
        6
        2713
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • ryanwats
          ryanwats last edited by

          Based on this post from 2009, it's recommended in most situations to set up a microsite as a subdirectory as opposed to a subdomain. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites.  The primary argument seems to be that the search engines view the subdomain as a separate entity from the domain and therefore, the subdomain doesn't benefit from any of the trust rank, quality scores, etc.  Rand made a comment that seemed like the subdomain could SOMETIMES inherit some of these factors, but didn't expound on those instances.

          What determines whether the search engine will view your subdomain hosted microsite as part of the main domain vs. a completely separate site?  I read it has to do with the interlinking between the two.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Conor_OShea_ETUS
            Conor_OShea_ETUS @ryanwats last edited by

            I think the footer is the best way to interlink the websites in a non-obtrusive way for users.  This should make your main corporate site your top linking site to each subdomain - and this is something you should be able to verify in a tool like Google Webmaster Tools.  I do not have any specific examples to support this, but this is a common web practice.

            This is not 100% related, but Google recently suggested using Footer links as one way to associate your web content with your Google profile account:

            http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986

            So you can figure if Google looks to footer links to associate authorship - they would likely do the same to relate sites together.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Svetoslav
              Svetoslav last edited by

              Hi Ryan,

              Your question is quite interesting. I, myself, went through the article one more time. I have no facts to back up the following, but I hope that it will contribute. FIrst I would go and validate them on webmaster tools. If they are inteded to hit a certain market, I will select that geographical location. Also, I think you have litte to worry about. I imagine that google won't pass certain trust to subdomains, depending on the site. If the number of subdomains is considerable, I would say that they have pretty slim chances of getting some push from the main site. Take for example free webhosting services. They could rank and have decent page rank, if people show interest to the particular subdomain, but is highly unlikely taht to be caused by the authority of the main site.

              I haven't seen free hosting subdomain rank well for a long time now. On the other hand you have student and academic accounts on university sites. They all go with subfolders and rank pretty well for highly specific topics. If I have to give a short answer, I would say that is the type of site that makes the difference for google. If your site is considers a casual business website and you are developing a new market then you might not have a problem. If you use sudbomains for specifying product, then you might be ok again.

              Google use subdomain for all their major products. For Google pages they used a separate domain. They now redirects to a subdomain sites.google.com. However, they will never give subdomains for personal use. There might be something to that. They do a 301 redirect from a subdomain on googlepages.com to sites.google.com/site/. So what they offer is a 301 redirect to a sub-sub folder, located on a subdomain on Google.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • ryanwats
                ryanwats @Conor_OShea_ETUS last edited by

                Ok. That makes sense. The way our company would use it is having a microsite for specific, focused topics - large enough that warrant their own site.  They are clearly part of our overall brand, unlike the Disney properties example.  On each of these sites, there will almost always be a link back to the main/corporate website, usually in the footer.

                Do you think having one or two links on every page pointing back to company.com would be sufficient to notify search engines that the two are associated, and ultimately give some search value to the subdomain hosted microsite from the main domain?

                Are there any studies or evidence supporting any of this?

                Conor_OShea_ETUS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • Conor_OShea_ETUS
                  Conor_OShea_ETUS last edited by

                  Interlinking is definitely a factor - but content is what matters.

                  Take the Disney brands that live on Go.com:

                  Espn.go.com

                  Abc.go.com

                  Abcnews.go.com

                  They all live on Go.com but Google surely knows they are really separate sites that cover different topics.  Same for any blogspot.com, typepad.com, etc. hosted blog.  The millions of blogs there cover a wide range of topics and search engines understand that they are not related just because they share the same host domain.

                  On the other end of the spectrum - if your site just has two subdomains - let's say www.website.com and blog.website.com ... which cover the same topics and link to one another, search engines would more likely associate those two addresses.

                  ryanwats 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • john4math
                    john4math last edited by

                    I don't have an answer to your question, but if you're looking for some more reading about subdomains vs. TLDs, here is a presentation given at MozCon: http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/mozcon-international-seo/. The slideshow has some info about it, and a bunch of other good stuff.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • LianaLewis

                      Backlink quality vs quantity: Should I keep spammy backlinks?

                      Regarding backlinks, I'm wondering which is more advantageous for domain authority and Google reputation: Option 1: More backlinks including a lot of spammy links Option 2: Fewer backlinks but only reliable, non-spam links I've researched this topic around the web a bit and understand that the answer is somewhere in the middle, but given my site's specific backlink volume, the answer might lean one way or the other. For context, my site has a spam score of 2%, and when I did a quick backlink audit, roughly 20% are ones I want to disavow. However, I don't want to eliminate so many backlinks that my DA goes down. As always, we are working to build quality backlinks, but I'm interested in whether eliminating 20% of backlinks will hurt my DA. Thank you!

                      Technical SEO | | LianaLewis
                      1
                    • SS.Digital

                      Google Indexed a version of my site w/ MX record subdomain

                      We're doing a site audit and found "internal" links to a page in search console that appear to be from a subdomain of our site based on our MX record.  We use Google Mail internally.  The links ultimately redirect to our correct preferred subdomain "www", but I am concerned as to why this is happening and if it can have any negative SEO implications. Example of one of the links: Links aspmx3.googlemail.com.sullivansolarpower.com/about/solar-power-blog/daniel-sullivan/renewable-energy-and-electric-cars-are-not-political-footballs I did a site operator search, site:aspmx3.googlemail.com.sullivansolarpower.com on google and it returns several results.

                      Technical SEO | | SS.Digital
                      0
                    • ChristianRubio

                      Title Tag vs. H1 / H2

                      OK, Title tag, no problem, it's the SEO juice, appears on SERP, etc.  Got it. But I'm reading up on H1 and getting conflicting bits of information ... Only use H1 once? H1 is crucial for SERP Use H1s for subheads Google almost never looks past H2 for relevance So say I've got a blog post with three sections ... do I use H1 three times (or does Google think you're playing them ...) Or do I create a "big" H1 subhead and then use H2s? Or just use all H2s because H1s are scary?  🙂 I frequently use subheads, it would seem weird to me to have one a font size bigger than another, but of course I can adjust that in settings ... Thoughts? Lisa

                      Technical SEO | | ChristianRubio
                      0
                    • Creditsafe

                      No index on subdomains

                      Hi, We have a subdomain that is appearing in the search results - I want to hide this as it looks really bad. If I were to add the no index tag to the sub domain would URL would this affect the whole domain or just that sub domain? The main domain is vitally important - it is just that sub domain I need to hide. Many thanks

                      Technical SEO | | Creditsafe
                      0
                    • Houdoe

                      CNAME vs 301 redirect

                      Hi all, Recently I created a website for a new client and my next job is trying to get them higher in Google. I added them in OSE and noticed some strange backlinks. To my surprise the client has about 20 domain names. All automatically poiting to (showing) the same new mainsite now. www.maindomain.nl www.maindomain.be
                      www.maindomain.eu
                      www.maindomain.com
                      www.otherdomain.nl
                      www.otherdomain.com
                      ... Some of these domains have backlinks too (but not so much). I suggested to 301 redirect them all to the main site. Just to avoid duplicate content. But now the webhoster comes into play: "It's a problem, client has only 1 hosting account, blablabla...". They told me they could CNAME the 20 domains to the main domain. Or A-record them to an IP address. This is too technical stuff for me. So my concrete questions are: Is it smart to do anything at all or am I just harming my client? The main site is ranking pretty well now. And some backlinks are from their copy sites (probably because everywhere the logo links to the full mainsite url). Does the CNAME or A-record solution has the same effect as a 301 redirect, from SEO perspective? Many thanks,
                      Hans

                      Technical SEO | | Houdoe
                      0
                    • Gordian

                      Speed benefits from loading images from a subdomain

                      I have read that loading images from a subdomain of your site instead of the main domain will give you speed benefits on load time. Has anyone actually seen that to be the case? Thanks!

                      Technical SEO | | Gordian
                      0
                    • RocketZando

                      Best Way To Clean Up Unruly SubDomain?

                      Hi, I have several subdomains that present no real SEO value, but are being indexed. They don't earn any backlinks either. What's the best way of cleaning them up? I was thinking the following: 1. Verify them all in Webmaster Tools. 2. Remove all URLs from the index via the Removal Tool in WMT 3. Add site-wide no-index, follow directive. Also, to remove the URLs in WMT, you usually have to block the URLs via /robots.txt. If I'd like to keep Google crawling through the subdomains and remove their URLs, is there a way to do so?

                      Technical SEO | | RocketZando
                      0
                    • joony2008

                      Redirecting Root domain to subdirectory by IP addresses (country specific)

                      We are using Wordpress Multisite. so www.mysite.com is our English website and www.mysite.com/sub is our Chinese website Can I redirect Chinese visitors who type "www.mysite.com"  to "www.mysite.com/sub" ? so we want to force redirection to www.mysite.com/sub if our website is visited by Chinese IP Address. I've realized that this is called GeoIP Redirection. and our hosting company already has those database, I guess my job is just to simply insert some code in .htacess My question is, would it affect our SEO later on? and what .htacess code is the best practice here?

                      Technical SEO | | joony2008
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    • Digital Marketers
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.