Google and how it treats subdomains and subdirectories
Recently, I’ve been reading a few articles regarding an algorithm change that Google has implemented and about the way it handles subdomains and subdirectories. This reported change seems to have got many people worried that their subdomains would be removed from the search engine results, but today Google’s Matt Cutts posted an article clarifying the situation on this matter.
What is the difference between a Subdomain and Subdirectory?
A subdomain appears to a visitor on your website as subdomainname.yourdomain.co.uk in the address bar of the browser. A subdomain generally has its own hosting space, domain characteristics and is completely separate from the main website. A location of the subdomain is often controlled via a DNS alias.
A subdirectory on the other hand is merely a folder within the main website structure and appears to a visitor as www.yourdomain.co.uk/subdirectoryname/. Subdirectories are a lot simpler to manage as they are contained within the structure of your main website hierarchy.
What does the Google change mean then?
According to the reports I’ve been reading, Google’s algorithm change would treat subdomains and subdirectories as the same and only list two results. This could mean that websites making use of several subdomains could potentially find a large bulk of their rankings dropped.
However, according to Matt Cutts this algorithm change hasn’t made much difference at all. In fact this change was implemented weeks ago and since then it has hardly been noticed as Google still displays multiple results for the same domain if they feel it offers something that a visitor would want to see.
My outlook on this is that as long as any content used within a subdomain focuses on a specific subject, product or service area such as recruitment or news then I don’t think there’s much cause for concern. My own personal preference would be to opt for subdirectories for their ease of use and for the fact that I believe it’s always better to expand on a websites size and keep it’s content under one roof rather than split it up across several subdomains unless there’s good reason to do so.
Tags: algorithm changes, Google