Subdomain vs. Folder for a Blog
Posted May 8th, 2009 by erincolbert
I haven't been able to find a clear answer to whether or not there is any difference in hosting a blog on a subdomain (blog.company.com) versus in a folder (company.com/blog). Some have noted that with the subdomain you can actually improve your search visibility because if both your blog and your main website rank for the same keyword you could appear in 2 positions on the SERP (i.e. blog ranks 1st and main website 2nd). What are the pros and cons of each?
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Complete analysis and blog article about folder/subdomain
Mike Volpe 2 years 50 weeks 1 day 23 hours ago
This blog article basically explains the big picture about what URL is the right URL to use for a blog:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/3994/Launching-A-Business-Blog-Avoid-This-Common-URL-Mistake-at-Blogspot-and-Typepad.aspx
And here are two articles from trusted SEO sources that talk about the subdomain and subfolder basically being the same with no real SEO difference:
http://searchengineland.com/071207-090257.php
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015621.html
Erin, that's a really good
yshapira@hubspot.com 3 years 1 week 6 days 14 hours ago
Erin, that's a really good question.
Both approaches work towards the basic goal of getting you to publish more content.
Overall, however, I prefer the sub-domain, or even an entirely different domain for the blog, and here's why.
You typically want to use the blog for thought-leadership, estabilshing yourself as an influencer in your industry or sector. To do so, you want to focus on content that is fresh, original, creative, and thought-provoking for your readers. You don't want to necessarily promote your products or services too bluntly.
When your blog is on the same domain as your web site, people associate the two as one and the same. That's OK for some blogs, but it somewhat misses on the opportunity to fully utilize the blog as a *separate* marketing channel.
A sub-domain is better, because it providers for more clear separation. It also faciliates separating analytics: viewing visitors to your main site versus your blog, referral sources separately, flow between the two sites, etc. These are harder when blog is just a folder.
If you take the separation path even further, you can consider an entirely separate domain for your blog. For example, if you're a company called Acme that sells gardening services in a very "web 2.0" way (I know it's crazy ;)), you might want www.acme.com to be just about your company, and a blog at www.gardening20.com.