[BNM] Moving wordpress blogs from subdomains

[Nick Wilsdon]

Hi Michael,  
 
To clarify (with sources) 
 
“Google may move closer to treating subdomains as we do with subdirectories”
 
HYPERLINK
"http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015621.html#comment-648332"http://www.
seroundtable.com/archives/015621.html#comment-648332
 
They don’t want loads of sub-domains showing up in the index. This kind of
‘spam’ is pretty evident in the estate agent area – i.e.
boston.estateagent.com, newyork.estateagent.com – some people have been/are
flooding the SERPs with these, using the trust of their main domain. 
 
Google will now (usually) stop more than 2 results appearing from the same
domain/sub-domains for any search query. Unless the sites are particularly
relevant (read: have a lot of Google juice/authority). 
 
By my comment, I mean that Google will start to treat subdomains as
separately entities in regard to ranking. They will have to build up their
own link equity and authority and not rely on the overflow from the main
domain. 
 
Read these:
 
HYPERLINK
"http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/"http://www.mat
tcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/
 
and: HYPERLINK
"http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3237888.htm"http://www.webmasterworld.
com/google/3237888.htm (esp. Ted’s comments) 
 
“But there are other reasons. In many ways, a subdomain will be treated as a
separate domain and will need to establish its own trust signals. My advice
is to use subdomains only when the content involved serves a substantial and
distinct business purpose -- to the degree that you might also at least
consider using a separate domain name for the purpose.”
 
As you probably know, the main reason people used to use the subdomain
strategy was to get more visibility. Subdomains show up in the SERPs as
individual entities, folders do not. However these changes are making this
much harder. Before you could rely on some trust overflow from your main
domain, now you have to carry out substantial link building on the
subdomain. 
 
If you are using this strategy to dominate particular SERP results, with all
your subdomains targeting the same keyword niche, you will find it hard to
get more than 2 results.  You may want to consider putting them on unique
URLs or (if you want the easy boost that subdomains used to give you) into
folders. 
 
Personally I have moved to unique URLs – as you can keep the theme of the
inbound links constant. With too many themes going on in the one site, your
link profile can become confused and prevent you appearing as an authority
for any one of the niches (i.e. our site is targeting both SEO consultancy
and selling domains, which has handicapped us in the rankings for both
areas)
 
HTH,
 
Nick 
 
CEO
e3internet
http://www.e3internet.com 
 
P please consider the environment - do you really need to print this email?
 
 

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