Subdomains - a great way to introduce more keywords into your URLs?
David Rosam on Aug 14 2007 at 4:47 pm | Filed under: SEO copywriting, Search Engine Optimization
Actually, they’re not.
It’s a topic that has come up a few times in meetings recently, as people want to divide their sites up into sections such as http://wensleydale.cheese.com. Nice and keyword-rich, yes, but a real hamper to your organic SEO results. And a fashion in webmaster circles from a few years back.
So where’s the problem? Basically, there are two, both related to link building.
Firstly, if you use directories to build some easy links, you’ll find that many of them refuse to feature links to subdomains. So linking becomes even more time-consuming, and you’ll find yourself with a truncated list of usable directories.
And secondly, links to subdomains don’t give you full leverage on to the main domain (or any other subdomains, for that matter), so that you need more links to attain the same Organic SEO effect as links directly to the main domain (cheese.com).
So please try to avoid using subdomains if you’re interested in natural search results.
