Should Your Blog Be In A Folder Or A Subdomain?

Where you place your blog can be critical to its SEO success. There are three places, technically, to put your blog so that it sits on a server and does what it is suppose to do. It can sit in a folder on your domain, it can be a subdomain, or it can sit on the root of a domain. Here’s what your blog URL will look like in each case:

In a folder:

http://domainname.com/blog

As a subdomain:

http://blog.domainname.com

On the root domain:

http://blogname.com

There are benefits to placing your blog on its own domain name and using it to drive traffic to your main website, but that’s a separate discussion. Let’s assume that you want your blog on the same domain as your website. Should it be in a folder or operate as a subdomain? I think you’ll get more benefit from putting your blog in a folder. There are several reasons why.

First, subdomains do not always receive the same benefits as the domain under which they sit. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. For instance, if your site’s PageRank is a 6, your subdomain may receive that same benefit or it may not. If your site has 1 million inbound links, they may tranfer to your subdomain or they may not. There is no clear policy or trend on how subdomains are treated by the search engines. Some subdomains are dismissed altogether.

A folder, on the other hand, always gets the benefit of the domain on which it sits. If your site is a PR 3 then that will benefit your blog. The blog could have a higher or lower PR than the website itself. Individual blog posts could have higher or lower PRs and each will have its own link popularity, but the link juice that flows from your main website to your blog and each page on it will be real benefits.

Another reason you want your blog in a folder and not on a subdomain is because if your blog is in a folder then it will benefit your entire rank’s search engine saturation numbers. A subdomain won’t do that. A subdomain is often treated like a standalone domain and doesn’t always carry the same benefits as a standalone domain.

There are plenty more reasons why a folder is better than a subdomain, but these are the big reasons. Can you think of any more reasons why you’d want your blog in a folder as opposed to a subdomain?