Subdomains or Subdirectories? That is the question

This is another question that a lot of people ask. One client recently asked if using subdomains would hurt or help his SEO efforts.

My answer: Subdomains are like standalone websites without the advantage of having a real domain name. You can build whole sites on subdomains, but they won’t help the website on the actual domain and the subdomains carry less weight than a site on an actual domain name. /folders help add content to your website. If what you want to put on the subdomain isn’t to help your website, then it’s better to get a domain name for that content. Google has been wavering on how they treat subdomains.

So I looked it up on the Google Webmaster Blog just to be sure.

Subdomains vs. Subdirectories

What’s the difference between using subdomains and subdirectories?

When it comes to Google, there aren’t major differences between the two, so when you’re making that decision, do what works for you and your visitors.

In addition to those considerations, if you use Webmaster Tools (which we hope you do!), keep in mind that you’ll automatically be verified for deeper subdirectories of any sites you’ve verified, but subdomains need to be verified separately.

So, they are the same from an SEO perspective, at least for Google. Remember, you need traffic from other search engines as well. The Google Webmaster blog only applies to Google Optimization. The advice that Matt Cutts gives us is also only about Google Optimization.

Some search engines may treat subdomains as separate websites and subdirectories or folders as part of the actual website. So the safer way to go for SEO purposes is to use subdirectories or folders for content you want to be seen as part of your website.

This is from Matt Cutts on how Google treats subdomains and subdirectories;

My personal preference on subdomains vs. subdirectories is that I usually prefer the convenience of subdirectories for most of my content.

A subdomain can be useful to separate out content that is completely different. Google uses subdomains for distinct products such news.google.com or maps.google.com, for example.

If you’re a newer webmaster or SEO, I’d recommend using subdirectories until you start to feel pretty confident with the architecture of your site. At that point, you’ll be better equipped to make the right decision for your own site.

Remember the KISS principle. keep it simple and stupid. The more you complicate your SEO efforts, the more likely you will make a mistake.

In addition to that, Google has changed their policy on subdomains more than once. They have always counted subdirectories as content for your site. Do you really want to put all that effort into building subdomains just to have them change that policy again?

I recommend subdirectories / folders if you must use them at all. For most websites I put all of the web pages in the root with folders for images, docs, scripts, styles, etc. It makes it very easy to work on your website when you do it this way.

Excessive folders with different keyword names can make your URLs seem like spam. I can’t prove that is a problem, but anything that looks like spam, smells like spam and tastes like spam is probably spam.

What experience have you had with subdomains vs. subdirectories? I don’t mean just in Google. How do they do for you in Yahoo and Bing or other search engines?