This is always a question in SEO that comes up again and again, but I believe that the answer is still the same. Subdomains vs Subfolders – which is best for SEO?
There could be many reasons for using a subdomain or a completely new domain in this instance. It could be technically easier to set up; you might want to target seperate branding; you might want to target a different location or language.
But, for SEO purposes, I would still always advise my clients to use a subfolder.
Some clients I have come across have used a subdomain thinking that this would be good for their SEO. This is under the theory that the original domain, and the subdomain will both have an opportunity to rank in a similar topic, and therefore they can dominate the search engines. But the opposite is true.
All this technique is doing is spreading the inbound links across two sites, therefore hurting the ability for both of them to rank.
Consider this scenario. You have opted to use a subdomain for your blog. You already have 50 good backlinks heading to your main domain, and you have managed to obtain another 50 good backlinks to your subdomain.
And lets say, with these backlinks, and with all other ranking factors, that your main domain and subdomain have the domain authority to get you ranking both on the 2nd page of Google for “keyword 1”. Great! Page 2 will get you some traffic.
But now consider the scenario where you have opted to use a subfolder for your blog. You already have 50 good backlinks heading to your main domain, and you have managed to obtain another 50 good backlinks to your subfolder blog. This means that you now have 100 backlinks to your main domain!
Having double the links going to your main domain will dramatically increase it’s domain authority. This means that any page on the site – including the blog in the subfolder – will be far more likely to rank for any keyword!
So, if you were ranking on page 2 (twice) for “keyword 1” in Scenario 1, you will likely be ranking on page 1 (once) in Scenario 2. I know which I would prefer.
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