How Much Page Rank / Authority Passes Between Subdomain Main Domain?

[Planet13]

Hi there, Everyone:

I am REALLY thinking about starting a new site that would be a "social network" site, and I still can't decide whether to put it on:

1) a NEW domain
2) a subdomain of my ECOMMERCE site, or
3) A directory of my ECOMMERCE domain.

My ecommerce site sells widgets. The social network would be for helping admirers of widgets meet up with other local admirers (similar to a dating site), listing widget workshops, having a directory of museums and galleries where widgets may be seen, a blog, recipes, reviews on books about widgets, etc.

The MAIN point of the social network as I see it will really be to pass page rank and authority to my ecommerce site. However, if possible, I would also like to monetize it through traditional means (i.e., adsense and affiliate links). Membership would be free, however.

My main concerns are:

1) If I put the social network in a directory in the ROOT domain of my ecommerce site, will it somehow dilute the value of my ecommerce pages to google / confuse google as to what my domain is about?

2) If I put it in a subdomain of the root site, will google still pass Page Rank / Authority / Brand Signals to the main root domain (i.e., the ecommerce site)?

3) If I put the site on a new, keyword-focused domain, can I still count on a ranking boost similar to what we have seeing in the past with exact-match domain names? (It seems that some people feel that exact match domains are not that helpful anymore, while others seem to feel they are still really helpful.)

Thanks in advance for any tips or experience you might have with this. If there is anything else I am forgetting to ask about, please let me know.

[netmeg]

If I had a reasonable amount of brand recognition, I'd probably put it in a folder. I'd want the users of the network to know it's an officially sponsored (by me) network.

It's probly six of one, half a dozen of the other between subdomain and folder, except I'm lazy about configuring Analytics to deal with subdomains. Folders are easier.

[tedster]

I think the answer to this question depends mainly on how the main domain and the subdomain are interlinked. Factors such as PageRank and authority pass through links, and not merely inherited because of the domain name relationship.

[Planet13]

@ netmeg:

...except I'm lazy about configuring Analytics to deal with subdomains. Folders are easier.

Ahh, I forgot about that. I am glad you brought that up because I am already struggling with analytics reports as it is. So setting up as a folder in the root domain will be a big benefit for me.

@ tedster:

I think the answer to this question depends mainly on how the main domain and the subdomain are interlinked.

Ahh... that brings up my next question: In the age of pandas and Penalties, i would imagine that we can be more liberal in our interlinking between a domain and subdomain than we can be between one root domain and another root domain, right?

What I am asking is whether one might be more prone to a penalty / Pandalization by linking between two separate domains than they would by linking a subdomian to a root domain and vice versa.

Note: I am not planning on doing anything worthy of a penalty or a Panda demotion. But I do want to stay as far away as I can from even a possible erroneous penalty. My plan is on the social pages to have links to products on my ecommerce page... something that MIGHT infuriate the Panda.

[tedster]

My plan is on the social pages to have links to products on my ecommerce page... something that MIGHT infuriate the Panda.

Why do you feel that might be true? It seems outside anything I've heard from either our members or from Google.

[Planet13]

Why do you feel that might be true? It seems outside anything I've heard from either our members or from Google.

Well, there once was a poster on these forums who claimed to be "algo proof" and went through painstaking measures to ensure his site was white hat.

Turns out, he was apparently not as algo-proof as he had thought.

apparently he had two sites that covered two different aspects of the same topic (one was sort of an ecommerce format, the other, i believe, had more of a corporate format). I think they were structured differently, but at the end of the day, they both sold widgets.

His thoughts were that he was punished by google for having two sites that both ranked well for (more or less) the same keywords.

Now, admittedly, he could have been penalized for something else.

However, the person in question had been a stickler for getting links through link begging, and was generally NOT one to go out and acquire a bunch of whack links.

So, in conclusion, I am a bit paranoid about doing ANYTHING that might be misconstrued by google as either a link network or any other form of heinous link building. Hence my thought that it owuld be safer to have content that might rank for similar keywords all on a single domain.

[tedster]

Ah, I see. Well, I don't think this area of overlapping websites is necessarily a Panda situation. For several years, it's been important to keep separate sites tightly focused - or else risk being seen as a spammer. So, for instance, dedicated microsites can work well if they are focused just on one particular trademark of an overall brand, or on the investors' site of the corporation, or on B2B sales instead of B2C sales.

However, if two sites are really after the same keywords and aiming for the same type of conversion, then yes - I would definitely avoid interlinking. But as I said, I see this as a pre-Panda consideration.

[Planet13]

So, for instance, dedicated microsites can work well if they are focused just on one particular trademark of an overall brand, or on the investors' site of the corporation, or on B2B sales instead of B2C sales.

For those types of microsites, where does the line need to be drawn in terms of interlinking the sites?

If Site A is a social networking site for widget admirers, and the right hand column has lots of links to the actual widgets for sale on Site B, at what point does google start considering Site A as doorway pages for Site B?

In theory, Site A would be able to stand on its own quality-wise as a social networking site, but the main monetization of Site A is to show ads for widgets on Site B (along with some adsense).

Will using nofollow links exclusively from Site A (social network) to Site B prevent google from thinking Site A is just a bunch of doorway pages?

[tedster]

Interlinking in a way that serves the visitor is what I've seen works the best - never interlink just for "PageRank circulation" or "anchor text influence" or things like that.

It's also best to launch a microsite with the basic interlinking in place rather than adding it later. However, in most cases, this is something that a well established brand does - and their established trust and authority usually carries the day.