Forum Moderators: open
I just finished browsing through 100 posts on subdomains, and -- though my eyes are a bit glazed over at this point -- I did learn quite a bit!
I run a personal site / general fun site hybrid and I'm contemplating moving [mysite.com...] to [humor.mysite.com...] using the .htaccess mod rewrite method, and I'd be greatly appreciative if you'd help me check my checklist of 'things to do / consider' :)
STUFF TO CONSIDER IN DECISION
- Are many sites already pointing to the subdirectory (mysite.com/topic)?
- Is this section already listed in a directory or directories?
- Is there sufficient content in this section to warrant a subdomain?
STUFF TO DO:
- Change all mysite.com links from mysite.com/topic to topic.mysite.com
- Put robots.txt in mysite.com root to disallow access to /topic
- Put separate robots.txt in /topic if there are files or subdirectories there that need to be excluded
- Make sure 404's are handled appropriately in new subdomain [I did a sym link in unix in each subdomain to have have my /cgi-bin directory mirrored so 404's could be universally handled by cgi-bin program Apache Guardian]
- Configure web stats programs to intelligently view and process new subdir hits [I use wusage, and I'm currently really confounded by this :(]
- Insure any absolute references (e.g., /graphics/banner.gif) are either changed into complete URL's (http://mysite.com/graphics/banner.gif) or sym link /graphics to /topic.
-----------------
Do you have any corrections or additions to my list of considerations and tasks?
Not so sure about that. If there are links pointing to /topic a 301 redirect will credit them to the new location until they can be changed. If there are some and you exclude robots they'll just be dead wood.
- Put separate robots.txt in /topic if there are files or subdirectories there that need to be excluded
You can do whatever needs to be done right in robots.txt in the root, that's all you need.
Keep in mind that subdomains are actually different "sites," so take that into consideration if you'll be doing a lot of cross-linking. It's not quite the same as within the same site.
Right now, I have a couple hundred files (jokes, funny stories, etc.) under mysite.com/humor. Both this directory and my site as a whole have a PR5.
For the convenience of my members and to potentially increase my site's pagerank, I'm contemplating changing this to humor.mysite.com.
There are a few, albeit seemingly not that many external sites linking to /humor on my site. But I worry that Google will still see these links while also learning of the humor.mysite.com links, and then penalize me for duplicate content!
Or will it just decide to drop the /humor links in favor of the humor.mysite.com links, without penalizing me?
Lastly, is this just a dumb decision on my part? The rest of the sections of my generalist-fun site do not have enough pages within them to warrant the conversion to subdomains (am I right that this is an important factor?), so there's gonna be a mishmash of mysite.com/this and that.mysite.com over time. Should this concern me?
You will also need to setup a 301 redirect for any request for domain.com/humor. If you do that, the subdomain will ultimately get credit for any old links out on the web, and Google won't try and index the content at two different locations.
But just to verify one understanding I have with the whole subdomain thing:
If I have a page on my site that offers commentary on and links to interesting swing dance resources (http://mysite.com/dance) for instance but doesn't have more than one or two additional pages... would I be harmed making this into a subdomain due to 'lack of content'?
Ideally, I'd love to have EVERY one of my site sections (including "about.mysite.com" for an FAQ, about me page, etc.) to be in the form of a subdomain, just for consistency sake.
But I worry about angering the GoogleGod (and other search engines) who might mistake this tactic for spamming, since every subdomain will include my common navbar which links to, logically, every section on my site.
Am I right in being reluctant to change over to subdomains? I'm less concerned about getting a SEO advantage than I am about getting deemed a spammer by the search engines.
I've read just the opposite...where they make no difference at all over folders.
Nonsense.
The most significant difference was stated in Marcia's post. In many respects subdomains are treated as a unique domain, with all of the advantages (and a few risks) which go along with that.
Ideally, I'd love to have EVERY one of my site sections (including "about.mysite.com" for an FAQ, about me page, etc.) to be in the form of a subdomain, just for consistency sake.
Sections, yes. Individual pages, no.
Provided you've got a significant amount of unique content that is similar in theme, a subdomain can serve both your visitors and the search engines.
To use your swing dance example:
If you only have a page or two of content, it doesn't make sense to create an entire subdomain for it.
Though it might be worth having all of your "dance" pages grouped under a subdomain which then has your "swing dance" pages as a part of it like so...
http;//dance.yoursite.com/swingdance
Think of your subdomains as entirely different domain names that have the benefit of building your single root domain's brand.
If you have enough unique content in a given section of your site to qualify for it's own independent web site and unique domain name, then you should do fine dedicating a subdomain to it.
Am I right in being reluctant to change over to subdomains? I'm less concerned about getting a SEO advantage than I am about getting deemed a spammer by the search engines.
There are two main risks associated with using subdomains.
1) Keyword stuffing subdomains for each individual page of a site or using subdomains for duplicate content, both of which can lead to multiple pages dominating a single search phrase... and will inevitably lead to the site being reported as spam by a competitor.
2) Extensive crosslinking without enough relevant inbound links to the subdomains from sites outside your own page network.
If each of your subdomains has a good number of inbound links you should have no problem. (inbound links to your current pages should pass over without a problem if you use the 301 redirect as outlined above)
If you really want to play it safe you could link sparingly between the subdomains in the beginning, implement an aggressive link building campaign for each of your subdomains, and then interlink the subdomains once the external links have shown up in the SE's.
That's the conservative approach.
Crosslinking penalties seem to have relaxed a bit since the PR0 deluge that happened some time ago.
You shouldn't have any worries about being accused of spamming provided you do the following:
And Marcia, I must respectfully suggest that your comment about robots.txt only being needed in the site root is mistaken.
I have a robots.txt in mysite.com/
However, in my error logs, there are tons of listings for blog.mysite.com/robots.txt, which seems to suggest that a separate robots.txt file is indeed needed if I want to exclude files or directories in this subdomain.
Adam, that's a subdomain, not a directory on the same site. Technically, it's being treated as a separate site. That's the difference. You'll need it there, but if it were
mysite.com/blog/
it wouldn't be necessary. The second way, as a directory, it's on the same site, so one in the root covers it all. The first way - blog.mysite.com - the blog part is treated as a separate domain.
The fact that robots are looking for a robots.txt file for the subdomain shows that it's a separate entity. If a site has no robots.txt it'll show a 404 only once, for not being found in the root, not for subdirectories. Otherwise each would have to have one, or logs would be endlessly over-run with errors. One for each site is all that'll be looked for.
We don't know how much of a difference it makes, but in figuring site linking and navigation we have to remember that it can possibly make a difference with cross-linking issues.
I guess this gets fun when I have current subdirectories (/humor, /pictures) that I'm hoping to move into subdirectories (humor.mysite.com and pictures.mysite.com, etc.)
Of course, I'm not actually moving any files, just links.
From what I've gathered, from a search engine perspective, it's probably wisest for me to include the following in my root .htaccess:
RedirectPermanent /humor [humor.mysite.com...]
That way, Google et al won't index both the former /humor links AND the new humor.mysite.com links, from what I gather, right?
As a recap, I have links coming into mysite.com/topic/blahblahblah
Since I'm convering over to humor.topic.com, I want those links redirected.
I'm currently using this code in my .htaccess:
RewriteEngine On Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} topic.mysite.com
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}!topic/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ topic/$1 [L]When I add in "Redirect /topic [topic.mysite.com"...] then the browser hangs for anyone trying to visit anything in my TOPIC section.
Recommendations?
