Sub-domains and google

[rhodopsin]

So, a lot of the free web hosts - they only give you a sub-domain. For instance, geocities.

I don't want this to become a general discussion on the merits of free hosts vs. paid. I have one specific Q.

With a website that has a sub-domain web address - is this it finished as far as google is concerned. Would google ever rank such a website? How about the other search engines?

[Mr_Roberto]

A subdomain is fine.. Google ranks pages, not websites. However without your own domain name, you're going to find it difficult to get people to link to you - and without those incoming links you're not going to rank very well.

[ljgsites]

also be carefull of interlinking with sub-domains under the same domain.

[Marcia]

>>also be carefull of interlinking with sub-domains under the same domain.

Why do you say that? How about if they're on the same theme?

[MrSpeed]

I have a handful of subdomains (and some fee hosted sites for that matter ) that rank very well. In my case I treat them as seperate sites and do not interlink them.

My guess is that people get into trouble when they try to create a subdomain for every city in the country and heavily interlink them.

[nuevojefe]

MrSpeed,

you'd be surprised. I know of one site that is in the alexa top 3,000, and is NOT techie at all so that's definitely doing well, all from interlinking their own sub-domains. None of the pages on the entire domain are greater than PR4 and it probably has about 3,000 subdomains with subtantially duplicate content.

[netnerd]

nuevojefe

Just out of interest - are all the sub-domains on the same , or different, ips?

[internetheaven]

also be carefull of interlinking with sub-domains under the same domain.

I agree with Marcia, there is no reason not to interlink between sub-domains - this paranoia over cross-linking is getting out of hand. Remember, Google cannot (or should not) use filtering techniques that a competitor can use against you - only things you can screw up yourself.

[ljgsites]

Marcia-

It has to do with the placement of the link. There are was to get away with it but I don't think it is worth the risk. I am sure I had a penalty which lasted for 3 months. I do you really want the sub-domains themed together?

[nuevojefe]

Netnerd,

Yea, they're all on the same IP.

[phantombookman]

I had 2 sites on sub domains for a year and Google would only include the home page in their index.
I moved them over to separate accounts and the were including pages within weeks.

I wondered whether I could have achieved the same by just using separate IP's? I suspect so.

[moishe]

My travel site is doing just fine in G with all pages indexed, I have a main site devoted to an area in general and three sub-domains for the three main areas of interest. Don't know about PR yet as there hasn't been an update since I added the sub-domains. I have had no trouble getting people to link to the sub-domains from sites related to the individual sub-domain topics.

One oddity, Yahoo has indexed one of the subs, and it ranks top 10 for main KW's, but seems to be ignoring the main domain...

[gpmgroup]

Google had a big clearout of multiple sub domains earlier this year. Before then large sites such as universities had each faculty often indexed under its own sub domain, since the clearout very few faculties are indexed individually instead Google now only indexes the universities as a whole under www.

[internetheaven]

Google had a big clearout of multiple sub domains earlier this year.

What, you mean they deleted them manually from their index? I find that hard to believe ....

... surely they just devalued the internal linking the site had to each faculty. Even then, why should Google be bothered about subdomains of a large site if they offer the subject people are looking for?

[rhodopsin]

geocities sub-domains - how are these viewed? If they are diffferent people's sites. They are still sub-domains of geocities.

[lazycat]

My first website was (is) on a geocities subdomain. First of all I ranked pretty well, top 20 for my keywords...then, suddenly traffic dried up. Why? Well, simply another couple of sites also on a Geocities subdomain launched with similar subject matter to mine. When I search on the keywords which were pulling in visitors I find Google decides we're all part of a site called geocities and puts one page on top, another indented and decides all the rest should be filed under "more results from geocities.com"...which is where my site is usually now listed. :(