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SEO & Google Fight Over How Google Treats Subdomains vs Subdirectories

Jan 24, 2018 • 8:15 am | comments (43) by | Filed Under Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Submarnie

We are now off the 302 redirects fighting and now onto fighting about how Google handles subdirectories vs subdomains. In short, part of the SEO snippets Google video series, one of the videos released a month ago was named "Subdomain or subfolder, which is better for SEO?" Google's John Mueller basically said do what is best for your business and server set up and then explained how Google treats them - saying both are fine, both rank. Again, the video is from a month ago.

Here it is:

Here is the transcript also:

Today's question is an evergreen one.

Deepak from India asks us subdomain or subfolder, which one is the most beneficial for SEO. Google web search is fine with using either subdomains or subdirectories. Making changes to sites URL structure tends to take a bit of time to settle down and search so I recommend picking a set up that you can keep for longer. Some servers make it easier to set up different parts of a website as subdirectories, that's fine for us. This helps us with crawling since we understand that everything's on the same server and can crawl it in a similar way. Sometimes this also makes it easier for users to recognize that these sections are all a part of the same bigger website. On other servers using sub directories for different sections like a blog and a shop can be trickier and it's easier to put them on separate subdomains. That also works for us.

You'll need to verify subdomains separately in Search Console, make any changes to settings and track overall performance per subdomain. We do have to learn how to crawl them separately but for the most part that's just a formality for the first few days.

So in short use what works best for your setup and think about your longer-term plans when picking one or the other.

Now, Rand Fishkin posts on Twitter that the video was "disappointing" and Google answered it wrong:

So now Googlers like John Mueller and now Danny Sullivan have to go in and debate it. To them, it doesn't make sense. John did the internal research and has no clue why the SEO community thinks he wants to mislead them:

Danny Sullivan also:

Rand calls out Danny:

They get into it:

Some SEOs who are okay with it:

The debate goes on and on, I cannot list them all here.

Don't you just love this industry?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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Comments:

Miloš Milosavljević

01/24/2018 01:31 pm

Friesen.

Matt

01/24/2018 03:28 pm

This cracks me up. You gotta have balls to essentially tell Google that you know more about how their systems work than they do. Sure, it's possible Danny and John are part of some weird conspiracy to mislead the public about sub folders and sub domains, but it seems unlikely. I mean, how do you know for certain that other factors weren't at play when that your blog began ranking better after you moved it to a sub folder? And I thought SEOs hated it when Google said "it depends?" (Which is essentially what Rand is asking for.)

RyanMJones

01/24/2018 03:32 pm

I think what they're saying is, there's nothing in the algorithm that says "ooh it's a sub directory? +5 points." It's all about how we use them. If you run correlation, you're going to see directories winning over domains - but they're not winning based on being a directory vs subdomain. They're winning based on HOW the site architect used them. We'll ignore "keywords in domain" for now because Google basically killed that years ago so this all boils down to pagerank. The way most people use subdomains is to do stuff that's technically different than the rest of the site. Historically it's been for semi-related sections that may look or feel different. By their nature, subdomains gets LESS links from the total site than the directories do. Look at the nav of most of these sites. It usually links to something like 5-6 directories and maybe 1 sub domain for the blog or something. That right there is pagerank. If we graph the site's internal link structure we can clearly see that most sub-directories get way less links (and thus less authority) from the site than directories do. That's why we think and say folders work better. But seriously guys, it's time to stop having this debate. Do what works best for your users. There's no scenario in the world where Google will say "ok this site is more relevant to the query, but this less relevant one has subfolders instead of subdomains - so let's show that."

Mambo Man

01/24/2018 03:36 pm

John, Danny, stop the bullsh1t! NOW!

Josh Rubin

01/24/2018 05:05 pm

This kind of discussion bothers me, because nobody in the SEO industry, or Google, says "why" these things are the case. Here's my breakdown of subdirectory versus subdomain (and why Google is right that it "depends"): When you structure your site with subdirectories, each individual page is typically, due to typical dev practices, interlinked with the entirety of the site through menus and internal links. Your home page often points to all your main landing pages in those subdirectories, thus giving them strength. However, with subdomains, this is almost never the case. There might be one link to the main homepage of the 'mother' url, but that's about it. So all that internal link strength is lost in this format. This is basically down to how we most often build sites, and the dev behavior. I am willing to bet that if you used subdomains, and thoroughly linked all of the various pages across the other subs like you would with subdirectories, you'd end up with a 1:1 SEO value between the two (assuming you could make sure all other things like site speed, etc were equal, which may be a problem on cheaper hosting plans with extra server queries).

Josh Rubin

01/24/2018 05:06 pm

So, I just said pretty much exactly what you did before reading your post. Sorry, I wasn't stealing your thoughts - but you're on the mark!

RyanMJones

01/24/2018 05:12 pm

yup. but we as an industry are not capable of looking past the correlation to understand WHY it's correlated.

SEOKRU

01/24/2018 07:04 pm

For me the funniest was that John asks for users to "like" their video :))

Jenny Halasz

01/24/2018 07:15 pm

It’s a mathematical equation. Can sub domains and sub folders have equal value? Of course they can. Do they usually? No. So yes, if you build a sub domain that is for a specific purpose (cars.disney.com is John’s example I believe), and interlink it with the main website at the same level of saturation you would a sub folder, it’s going to do just fine. If you also get relevant links to it, it might do even better because of the specific topical focus. But in reality, that very rarely happens. In reality, most companies focus their efforts in link and PR development on the TLD. If you want to put in extra effort to develop the value of sub domains, have at it. But that’s not in most companies’ budgets. Therefore the sub folder structure is more sustainable for most companies.

Get off you

01/24/2018 10:06 pm

I would not want to manage a boat load of sub domains. That sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.

Alpha Male in a Beta World

01/24/2018 10:28 pm

The subdomain vs subdirectory meme is exactly right - then entirely is the truth. If it could be its own site, make a subdomain, if it is part of the content architecture (great word) subdirectory. I managed a Think Tank website - each policy center had its own subdomain because the content was totally different from each one. Worked fine!

@Michael_Martinez

01/24/2018 10:54 pm

Anyone who says subfolders carry more weight than subdomains is full of bullshit and should get out of the business. There is absolutely no advantage in terms of rankings, crawl, or other "SEO value" to using one over the other. THEY ARE JUST URLs to these algorithms.

@Michael_Martinez

01/24/2018 10:55 pm

They are very easy to manage with a little practice. Modern Web servers automate a lot of stuff. Where people get into trouble is when they try to do things without knowing what the best method is. Too many options confuse people who lack experience in managing multiple subdomains.

KateMorris

01/24/2018 10:57 pm

Well said sir

@Michael_Martinez

01/24/2018 10:59 pm

It's not the algorithms that distinguish in value between subfolders and subdomains. It's the bad SEO.

@Michael_Martinez

01/24/2018 11:01 pm

"However, with subdomains, this is almost never the case. There might be one link to the main homepage of the 'mother' url, but that's about it. So all that internal link strength is lost in this format. This is basically down to how we most often build sites, and the dev behavior."

Jenny Halasz

01/25/2018 12:01 am

I think that's what I just said (?)

Doc Sheldon

01/25/2018 02:04 am

I really don't see where John's or Danny's comments are so difficult to understand and accept. I'm sure we can all imagine circumstances in which a subdomain or folder structure might be the better choice, for a myriad of reasons. Stop looking for cookie-cutter answers... the only universal answer is "it depends"! But it's not a question of what's better for SEO... just what serves the site's purpose best.

@Michael_Martinez

01/25/2018 02:31 am

Sorry. I'm probably still too sick to be online.

Kristine S

01/25/2018 05:27 am

What Jenny said and what anyone from Google failed to mention in their answers. Sure they can rank the same. Do you have time, money, and resources to do so? Does it make sense to users? Etc. Those are even more important questions.

Umer Anees

01/25/2018 06:13 am

I am using the Subdomain because the main site content my subdomain content totally different. and i think for this subdomain is best you can tell Google about it that your main site is different than the subdomain. for subdirectory i think the content / topic related to the main domain. (This is what i think)

Akash Srivastava

01/25/2018 06:37 am

I have found subdirectory better than subdomain for SEO purpose when content/niche is same.

Ban Besharam

01/25/2018 07:57 am

Missing good old Matt Cutts, he used to talk sense ...

Eric Van Buskirk

01/25/2018 10:20 am

This is an awesome Twitter "dialog," one of the one's makes me proud of my industry peeps.

Eric Van Buskirk

01/25/2018 10:21 am

That's a generalization that they are "easy." Depends on the CMS and complexity of the site.

MeymiGrou Mey

01/25/2018 10:50 am

I would never use a subdomain again! For me, subfolders always had better rankings because they get all the backlinks point on my domain name. But subdomains, on the other hand, they don't get the backlinks and you start fresh.

@Michael_Martinez

01/25/2018 02:24 pm

That's like saying you'll never use subfolders ending in "a" because only the subfolders ending in "b" get the links. It just doesn't work that way. The only difference between subfolders and subdomains is how YOU treat them.

@Michael_Martinez

01/25/2018 02:25 pm

That's an excuse. Everything about managing a Website is either easy or hard depending on the choices you make for hosting and publishing.

RyanMJones

01/25/2018 06:14 pm

Look it's simple. Think like Google for a second. What value does example.com/whatever provide to the user over whatever.example.com? Does it make it more relevant? No Does it make it more trustworthy? No Does it somehow add to the quality? No So why would they reward it? It doesn't make sense to have anything in the algorithm that looks at the two. What it DOES look at is links. if the way you inter-link all your pages results in one option getting more links than the other, then YES it will out perform, but it's all about the link graph not the actual URL structure.

Joe Bergess

01/25/2018 07:10 pm

Much of the discussion and debate revolves around which method will improve a site's overall SEO, but what about the opposite? Could an array of subdomains that have issues, bad content, etc., harm a root domain?

@Michael_Martinez

01/25/2018 07:17 pm

According to Google, it would require an egregious amount of bad subdomains to hurt the root domain, but they have only said that of Web hosting companies. On the other hand, if you're publishing a single site as a set of subdomains (like CNN or Wikipedia) then they are all treated as one site, and the bad stuff might drag down the good stuff (according to Google when they talk about how sites are treated by spam algorithms).

Joe Bergess

01/25/2018 07:35 pm

That's interesting - are web hosting companies given more of a pass in regards to bad subdomains because of the nature of their business? That would make a lot of sense. You wouldn't happen to have a link to where Google talked about web hosting companies specifically, would you? I searched a bit but was unsuccessful.

Jim Hathaway

01/26/2018 07:58 pm

This answer really makes a lot of sense.

robdwoods

01/27/2018 08:17 pm

"I really don't see where John's or Danny's comments are so difficult to understand and accept" because, unfortunately too many still think there's a "secret sauce" that Google is trying obfuscate, and too many SEOs that hype their own expertise in convincing people that they have figured out that secret sauce.

robdwoods

01/27/2018 08:21 pm

unfortunately too many, like you, seem to believe in "domain authority" for links. Pages within a subdomain don't automatically inherit any link equity from the links to that domain. They only way they get link equity from other links to the domain is through internal links. A URL on a different subdomain gets no less link equity if it has one link from the main homepage than a URL on a subdirectory gets if it has one link from that same home page.

robdwoods

01/27/2018 08:30 pm

The fact that subdirectories "usually" rank better than subdomains has virtually nothing to do with the nature of the URL structure. It has to do with the fact that "usually" the pages on your main subdomain link more internally to pages on the same subdomain than they do to pages on other subdomains. The URLs on the same subdomain get more internally passed link equity than the URLs on a secondary subdomain. Once again, way too many so called SEO experts are confusing causation with correlation. Yes, usually subdirectories rank better, but that's because the IA of the site causes that, not because of Google's algorithm giving an innate advantage to one or the other type of URL. Do you really think Google is trying to trick you by hiding which one might work better than the other?

Mike

01/28/2018 06:28 am

This debate is asinine. go make some money.

Gareth Daine

01/28/2018 09:43 pm

I’m sick of all these whiney arguments. Just do your job and get on with life. Stop arguing on social media and concentrate on your business/clients. Test it. See what works in any given circumstance/set of conditions. Yawn!

Nicolas Guerinet

01/30/2018 09:40 am

Do a search in Google. How many times do see subdomains in the first entries?

Dylan Howell

12/05/2018 01:02 am

Newsflash: Subdomains have never performed as well as subdirectories and nothing has changed in the decade I've been following this debate.

Gabe Gayhart

07/18/2019 10:32 pm

technically, example.com/whatever is a file off the root ... example.com/whatever/ is a sub directory :)

Pablo Culebras

07/05/2020 02:03 pm

Hi, besides the question of subdomains -vs- subdirectories I have not found much info on wether placing interlinks between subsites on a subdirectories based multisite could be considered as a bad practice by google. Some SEOs apparently suggest that. What do you think about it?

The One

05/22/2021 02:54 am

Every single one.

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