How many subdomains per main domain acceptable

subdomain, domain, google

[Oimachi2]

Hi there,

I plan on making many, many subdomains for my websites.

I have 20 sites now, all root domains.

How many subdomains can I have by URL, 10? 100? 1000? No limit?

Do search engines give more priority to names like:

www.{example}dot com

versus:

www.{widgets.example}dot com?

Does a www.{example}dot com site with a PR6 will leak page rank to a www.{widgets.example}dot com site with a PR0?

Do domains get indexed and crawled faster than subdomains?

[Quadrille]

SEs treat subdomain.domain.com no differently than www.domain.com or www.domain2.com - you are, in effect, creating a new site.

All that matters is the value to your visitors, and justifying the extra resources you'll need to populate, market and SEO that new (sub)domain.

If there's a point to it, go for it. But also consider the other options

1. Using folders (eg www.domain.com/folder/, www.domain.com/folder2/) which will allow the sites ranking to be concentrated rather than shared between multiple domains.

2. Creating a whole new domain for a whole new topic (eg www.domain.com, www.domain2.com), which may reduce the risk of visitor confusion and complex navigation.

It all depends on why you think you need multiple (sub)domains.

[hakanhaknuz]

I agree with former poster and just want to add that there are well established websites with tons of subdomains on the internet, i guess that quantity doesnt matter .

[draggar]

Very true, there are countless websites out there with subdomains, but, from what I've learned here, widget.example.com will look like a completely different site to a search engine than www.example.com so if you want both sites to contribute to each other's SEO, then you'll want subdirectories, such as
www.example.com
www.exmaple.com/widget

So that the search engines see it as one site, not two (like sharing resources).

[Oimachi2]

Ok so what if I go this route:

www.exmaple.com/widget?

Inside the widget folder will be a whole new site with it's own index file and structure.

Should I put a link to it from www.exmaple.com? Should I create a new link campaign for www.exmaple.com/widget?

What would be a fast and sure way to get www.exmaple.com/widget indexed?

[draggar]

There is no "fast" way, but you'll want your page to be easily navigateable (is that a word?) by your visitors and the spiders, so you will want links going between www.example.com and www.example.com/widget (back and fourth).

But yes, in the widget folder you can have an entire site (one of my sites is like this, with folders of sites inside the other folders). :)

[Oimachi2]

So what would be more "crawlable"

A. A fresh Subdomain with a link to every single page on the site from the index file.

B. An established site housing a folder with the new site inside it with a link to every single page on the site from the index file.

in other words,

What is more crawler friendly and will get indexed quicker?

www.widgets.example.com new URL with no page rank but at the root level

or

www.example.com/widgets based on established URL with page rank but far away from the root

[Quadrille]

New pages on an existing site will likely get listed and ranked quicker than a new site.

But it does depend to some extent how old the 'existing site' is, and what else is on the site. Related content, some say, will rank quicker - and better.

To be comparable with a subdomain, don't plant the new content to deep. But there is no reason why site.com/newstuff shouldn't do as well as newstuff.site.com - and better, if there's existing content, existing incomng links and existing ranking at site.com.

But you will need to build in good navigation so the new stuff really is part of the existing site, in order to gain the 'shared domain' benefits.

[Oimachi2]

Thank to everyone!

Ok, so how about this, if I use this way:

www.example.com/site

On the example.com/index.php should I put a link to this?

http://www.example.com/site

or a link to this?

http://www.example.com/site.index.html

Cheers!

[edited by: Webwork at 7:32 am (utc) on Mar. 11, 2007]
[edit reason] Charter [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]