Best to put blog in Subdomain or Directory?

[jebernier]

Just wondering what Blog URL structure is best for organic ranking for my main domain:

www.example.com/blog
-or-
blog.example.com

I think I read somewhere that blog.example.com was better but I can't remember why?

Thanks in Advance,

John

[vlexo]

It's better to put your blog in a directory. If you place it in a subdomain then Google will think that your blog is not actually part of your website. This would mean any links gained to your blog, if you chose the subdomain route, would not benefit the rest of your site as much as it would if you had your blog in a subdirectory.

[phranque]

the actual url (subdomain vs subdirectory) is less important than link structure.
if your blog subdomain is well interlinked with the www subdomain then google will see it as similar to a subdirectory.

from a technical standpoint, going with a subdomain allows you to easily move the blog hosting to a separate server - for example if you wanted to go from self-hosted to a custom hostname on a managed blogging host.

[statrip]

In my opinion it is better to place it in subdirectory, If you want to benefit from accumulated backlinks and social signals. However, all big brands place it in subdomain, which actually makes me wonder why they do that.

[netmeg]

I don't think it's much of a signal at all for organic ranking; put it where it's easiest for you to admin.

[jebernier]

Thanks for the reply's. The main website is a Drupal site and although I could use the Drupal blog module and just put the blog in a subdirectory (www.example.com/blog) I feel that the Drupal Blog module is somewhat limited compared to WordPress. I'd rather install WordPress in a subdirectory and create a sub-domain (blog.example.com) pointing to it.

[phranque]

make sure requests for the subdirectory get redirected to the subdomain.